Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors Rewritten
by Answers4Mi
Summary: Basically a novel version of 999: 9 Hours but it's focusing on only one path and the plot, sequence of events, and other elements will be changed. So, nine people are kidnapped for the Nonary Game. Each of them will get to decide if they can escape alive.
1. Prologue

**Hello to all that decided to spend their time reading my fanfic! This is my first fanfic and I thought I should start on one about my favorite game: 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors! I do not own most of the characters mentioned in the story. Now, you'll see soon what this is about…**

…

**999: 9 Doors, 9 Persons, 9 Hours – Rewritten**

9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…

A loud noise was briefly heard. It had sounded like an explosion...

...

A loud noise had startled Junpei and he immediately opened his eyes. He had no idea what he had just heard but as he was thinking about that, he had realized that his surroundings weren't very familiar.

"Ow!" Junpei squealed.

With a loud crack, Junpei's head was connected with something metal. He rolled over and placed his hand onto his head to steady himself. After a few seconds, he had lost his balance and fell onto the floor.

"OWWW! GODDAMNIT! WHAT THE HELL?" Junpei screamed.

Junpei looked around at his surrounds to determine where he is located. He saw that he had fallen from a 3-level bunk bed. The top bunk from which he fell explained why his whole entire body is in so much pain. He had noticed the whole room was practically shaking.

Was it an earthquake, he wondered. He had no idea but it wasn't important right now. What is important was why he is in this room. He took a good look at the room he was at for the first time. It looked like a 3rd class cabin. Then this means he was on a ship.

"Might as well look around…" Junpei mumbled to himself.

There was a stove that looked like it was just there to show rather than function. The 3-level bunks had mattresses that were so thin they were classified as blankets. The other side of the room had an identical bed and between those beds was a iron door. Junpei had noticed one odd thing about this door.

It had the number [5] painted on it.

"What the hell… why is there the number 5 on that door?" Junpei inquired to himself. He decided to approach the door and try to open it. After all, it was the only way out of this room he's in.

And just like that, the door didn't open a bit. It stayed still like a stone wall. Junpei tried to open the door again by pulling its handle and the result was the same. The door had mocked him for his efforts. Next to the door was an odd-looking device. Junpei recognized it was a card reader. It didn't take long for anybody to deduce that the card reader wasn't letting the door open.

Junpei knocked on the door for a response. He had stopped once he had noticed something on his left wrist.

It was a bracelet with a large LCD display in its center. It was certainly not a watch since it only showed one number.

"5… it's the same number on that door." Junpei said.

As much as he wanted to associate with the sight of the bracelet, he wanted it off _now._ He flipped his hand over with the intent to remove it but the other side was solid with nothing there that showed you can remove it.

Junpei sighed. "There are a couple of rivets around the rim of the face. I hope God this will work."

He pushed them but to no avail. It was clear that the person who put the bracelet on him had made sure to seal any opportunity to remove it. Junpei tried removing it by force but it was the same result as before.

"What is this thing doing here? Why am I here? Why? WHY?" Junpei exclaimed with a depressing tone. "What the heck happened to me…"

As he tried to remember what happened recently, he had accidently stumbled into the mirror. When he looked at himself, he couldn't believe his eyes.

He had bags under his eyes, his face was very drawn and pale, and he looked like he was on the verge to death.

Suddenly, he had remembered what had happened earlier.

...

When Junpei had entered his apartment, Apartment 202, the first thing he did was to turn on the lights. Nothing looked out of place except for one thing.

Junpei had noticed the window was wide open. This had let a breeze fill up his apartment. Not that he minded it or anything but it was certainly odd for a window to be open. After all, it was midnight. But he didn't remember leaving that window open. But he didn't too much of it as he shrugged and closed the window.

But as he turned around, he had encountered a man dressed all in black. He was wearing a dark hood and his face was obscured by a bulky gas mask.

Junpei tried to scream at the sight of this man but a white smoke had filled up the room. A small grenade was the cause of this smoke. As the rate of smoke goes up, Junpei's consciousness goes down. Before he collapsed he had heard the man's voice.

"Consider this a privilege. You have been chosen. You are going to participate in a game. The Nonary Game. It is a game… where you will put your life on the line."

His voice sounded so distorted Junpei couldn't make out who he is. But before he could do anything about it, he had fallen into his own little world...

...

"Oh yeah! That man with the gas mask must have done this to me!" Junpei said. Truth be told, he had no idea if that was a man. His voice sounded like it came through a voice-changer. But who was he…?

"What the hell is a Nonary Game? _Goddamnit!_" Junpei yelled as he placed his fist on the mirror.

But as Junpei walked away from the mirror, he had noticed a window. When he had walked towards it, it was clear he was on a ship.

"Now let's see if there's anything to see at this tiny window…"

He had seen nothing but complete darkness. Perhaps if he squinted at it a little more-

Suddenly, a small noise was produced. It came from the window. This could only mean one thing.

The window started cracking.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" Junpei said with horror in his voice.

The window had burst and water was angrily gushing out into the room. Water had already filled up part of the ground and he had to get out of there _now_. Junpei quickly rushed towards the door and pounded on the door.

"Is anybody there? Let me out! Let me out now!"

No response. As every minute passed, water started to rise. It was looking bleak for Junpei. He needed to seek a way out of there.

…

**So what do you think? If you didn't like it, be aware that this is only the prologue. And yes, I did use some lines from the game. But don't think this is a linear copy from the game. I'm going to add a few characters of my own into this and change up the plot and the sequence of events. Maybe somebody who did die in the game won't in the fanfic. Who knows? So please review my story and expect more from me! **


	2. Unary Game

**Hmm… Not too many people viewing this yet. Oh well. If you're wondering about length of each chapter, that depends. The first chapter is short but you get why it's short. I do not own 999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors, the characters, and anything related to it in the game. **

**999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors - Rewritten – Unary Game**

"Oh, God, oh God… what do I do?" Junpei panicked. He had obviously never been in this kind of situation before. He had to get out fast or else what's left of him is going to float away into the sea.

He headed towards the mirror where he had noticed a small red key taped onto the mirror's front. He gave himself a facepalm for not noticing something so obvious.

"Damn it…" Junpei grumbled as he grabbed the key.

It was at the moment he had noticed a blue briefcase on the bottom level of the bunk bed. He tried to open it but it looked like it required a key. He had also found a note with blue figures on the left side and a bunch of red figures on the right side but his attention was being diverted against the briefcase.

"I can't open this! Maybe there's another key like the red one I have here somewhere in this room!" Junpei deduced. It wasn't that subtle of a clue but at least he had figured something out.

On the nearby sink, he had noticed a picture frame of a cruise liner and grabbed a note from the bulletin board above the sink. The note looked similar to the one he had found on the bed and it was quite odd since there were two red right triangles on the left side, which one of them was hollow and the other shaded. There were also two blue right triangles on the opposite side, again following the criteria for the red triangles. But the notes were useless for now so he decided to examine the picture frame.

"Is that a ship? Yeah, it is." Junpei said as he examined the picture frame. "Maybe there's something written behind the picture."

However, it looked like he needed a screwdriver to do that. The screws of the picture frame won't let him get that picture out easily. Not only that, the water level in the room had increased, albeit increasing in a very slow rate.

"Oh my god… I've never seen water flushing out that slow! But why am I complaining? This is good for me!" Junpei inquired to himself.

The next place he had thought to look was that stove he had spotted earlier. It looked rather old and it was quite clear this was not functional.

"It doesn't look like there's anything inside." Junpei uttered. "I might as well check this out."

When he had examined the teapot on top of the stove, he had found only one thing in it.

"Hah, the blue key's in here!" Junpei whispered. "But what about the metal stove?"

When he had checked the stove, he had found another bonus to his discovery. It was a screwdriver.

"Ha… Hahaha!" Junpei laughed. "Man, these items looked like they were deliberately placed there…"

As Junpei proceeded to unscrew the screws of the picture frame, he had noticed the water level slightly getting higher than ever before. He had to execute his plan of escape quickly.

When the screws came off, he took the picture inside and looked at it. The front side holds nothing special for him aside for something to look at but the back side caught his interest. It contained 10 different shapes that had a bunch of numbers below them that corresponded with them. Junpei quickly compared the figures with the two other notes and to his surprise, the figures on the back of the picture was actually a code for him to decipher the two notes he had.

"Aha! So the shapes on the back of this picture are actually there to solve this… puzzle…"

It didn't take long for him to realize that he still didn't know what to do even if he had deciphered the notes. What did the notes he had apply to…?

Since there was very little for him to do, he decided to decipher the notes he had with him. Using the code for the notes to decipher left-to-right, the red figures read 7485 and the blue figures read 0263. As he finished interpreting the notes, he had spotted another door, which looked like an accordion. He had decided to open it since he had an idea of what's inside.

"Heh, the red briefcase. I knew it." Junpei snickered to himself. "I amaze myself sometimes. And it looks like I might open this!"

Junpei inserted the red key into the keyhole and tried to open the briefcase. It still wouldn't budge. Then he had noticed there were dials that contained four numbers.

"That's it! The notes were there for me to open the briefcases! So no wonder they were placed there!" Junpei exclaimed.

Excitedly, Junpei turned the dials so they would match 7485 and a few seconds later, the sound of the briefcase being unlocked was heard.

"Yes! I opened it! Now, to see what's inside…"

What he had found inside seemed rather surprising to him. He had found a bunch of red key cards he knew he was going to need later.

"Oh yeah… There was another briefcase… the **blue briefcase**."

Junpei rushed towards the blue briefcase, ignoring the fact he might have tripped by the water. He quickly inserted the blue key into the keyhole, turned the dials to match (0263) and opened the briefcase. Inside were a file, a notebook, a pen, a calculator, and a bunch of key cards that looked similar to the red ones, obviously being blue being the only difference.

"All right, what's in this file…?" Junpei said as he read the file.

"Digital root – Compute a **digital root** using all of these steps. First, add all the numbers with one another. If you end up having a number that isn't a single digit number, add the digits to one another. If you have a number in the tens-place, add that number with the number in the ones-place. Keep adding these digits in this manner until you end up with a single digit number. For example, the digital root of 3568 is 3+5+6+8=22, 2+2= 4. Thus, the digital root of 3568 is 4. Another example is 4579, which is 4+5+7+9=25, 2+5= 7. So the digital root of 4579 is 7 and another use of the digital root is 1459, which is 1+4+5+9=19, 1+9=10, 1+0=1. The digital root of 1459 is 1."

"Digital root, huh?" Junpei asserted. "Wonder why this file's explaining digital roots to me… unless it's my math teacher who had kidnapped me! It makes perfect sense!"

With nothing else to do, he went towards the number [5] door and attempted to open it again. Obviously, doing the same thing over and over again resulted the same outcome; no response.

"Damn it! I guess I can't open this door by force." Junpei said. "But there is one thing I could do…"

Junpei took out the key cards he had found and swiped both sets of the key cards onto the card reader. To his surprise, it didn't work.

"Wait… WHAT? Why didn't it work? That's why they're called card readers!"

Junpei was getting increasingly frustrated every second. It didn't help that the water level had increased. It was right there he had spotted the number (5) on the door again.

"5… what does this mean?"

He tried to think why there was a number 5 on the door but a few seconds later, he remembered the concept of digital roots he had learned from the file.

"Digital root… does this mean I have to find the digital root of 5 with these cards?" Junpei asked himself. Since he didn't have any better ideas, he swiped the cards 1, 6, and 7 onto the card reader.

And just as he suspected, the noise he had heard whenever he inserted the wrong card didn't ring into his ears. He had heard the sound of a door unlocking.

"Yes! The light on the card reader is blue! This has to mean the door is unlocked now! It's common locked-door logic!"

Without hesitation, Junpei opened the door and quickly zoomed out of the 3rd class cabin. He wasn't the only one who decided to get out of the room. The water that was filling up the cabin was pouring out into the narrow hallway he was in. It filled up the entire hallway and stopped short at the short flight of stairs. It took him only 5 steps to get to the top of the staircase.

"A door! It's another door!" Junpei responded.

He quickly opened the door and burst in. He stopped when he saw where he was.

"What the…? Where the hell am I?"

Junpei was in a room where a polished floor stretched out in front of him. The ornate staircases in front of him looked rather exquisite and were coming from different directions. The whole room was one big custom mansion. It was making him start to think if he was really on a ship. The gushing water in the small hallway behind him suggested that he was in a ship.

"Yeah… I'm in a ship. No doubt about it. …Wait, what the hell?"

All of a sudden, the water behind him started gaining speed and grew bigger and bigger. It was no longer a stream of water. It was a wave that would kill him if he got into its grasps.

"Crap! I gotta get out of here _now_!" Junpei shrieked.

He quickly ran towards the humongous staircase that lurked in front of him. He ran up the flight of stairs and ran for the next floor. Before he did, he looked at the plate hanging on the wall that read [C Deck]. Since the floor he was in was [C Deck], the next floor had to be [B Deck].

And he was right. He had arrived at a floor where a plate screamed [B Deck]. He honestly had no idea where to go but anywhere where a wave isn't is a much better place.

He took the stairs two at a time, not knowing where he would end up at. Just as when he was pondering where in the ship he would go to, Junpei saw another person at the tip of his eye.

It wasn't one person though. He had stopped at his tracks to see it was four people at the landing to the left of the stairs, staring at him with great intensity. And on the right side, three more people appeared, doing the same thing. To sum it up, seven people were present before him. It looked like they were planning to go down the stairs instead of up. They stopped when they saw Junpei and all but one of them stared at him with their eyes open wide. His response to their actions was the same thing: staring at them.

Junpei didn't move an inch as he was staring at them. All he was thinking was who were those people?

The entire scene only occurred at a matter of seconds for the woman he saw as one of them spoke to him and broke the silence.

"I guess there's another one of us now…"

The woman dressed rather oddly since she looked like a **dancer**. Her outfit covered very little of her chest and her jewelry covered little more.

"Hey! You! Come on! Hurry! Don't waste your time up there!" the dancer said.

With no time to waste, she zoomed right past Junpei and headed towards the doors standing behind him. Junpei was paralyzed at the sight of the image of that woman but the others didn't question her. They followed her instead.

The second person he saw out of those seven people was a young man with **silver hair**. He looked quite bored and gave Junpei only a glance.

"Hmph. One of us, huh? Get moving. _Now_." the silver-haired man muttered to him before he ran past him.

Following him was an older man whose face screamed determination and fearlessness. His hair had wisps of gray in it and the older man was wearing a trenchcoat. He looked like an elderly **lion**.

"NO! Don't go up! It won't do you any good! It's a waste of time! There are two doors but you can't open them!" the lion roared at him.

As the lion bolted past him, a girl with **pink hair** who had a high voice spoke to him.

"Come on! Aren't you coming with us? You gotta hurry if you are!" the pink-haired girl said.

Junpei noticed that her small hand was wrapped around the waist of another man. The man's eyes were closed as he was the only one he didn't stare at him back then. For someone at his age, his fashion sense was rather sophisticated and refined. He seemed rather royal and dignified and he looked like a **prince**.

"That's 9 of us, then. All of the cards are in hand." the prince said.

9 of them…? Counting himself, there were only 8 people there. Who was the 9th person he didn't see yet? Just as Junpei opened his mouth to ask the prince what he meant, they already ran past him.

Two more people ran towards him. One of them had hair that resembled a **bird's nest** and looked rather shocked at him and pretty much everything else. The other was a rather large **mountain** of a man.

"H-hey… W-what a-are you doing? Move it… A-as you can see, all nine of us are heading towards that direction!" the man with the bird's nest said. He ran past Junpei before the mountain came towards him.

"Hey! What the hell are you just standing here for? Didn't you hear him? You have to follow him since the doors on A Deck are no good! We gotta check if the doors on B Deck work! You get it now, boy? Now _go_!" the mountain said angrily.

Before Junpei could answer him, the mountain laid his hand on Junpei's shoulder and shoved him out of the way as if the mountain was to pick up a thread.

"Whoa!" Junpei exclaimed. It didn't surprise him that the mountain can easily lift Junpei up but it made him get thrown off-balanced. It took only a few seconds to get his mind and balance back. He turned around to see what the seven mysterious people he had saw were running toward.

There were two pairs of large iron doors set into the wall that lies in front of Junpei. They looked quite strong and durable and each of them had handles, like any other door. Each of the doors had a number painted on with red paint, just like the door Junpei saw in the 3rd class cabin. The door on the right had a [4] and the door on the left had a [5].

"Crap… they're the same." the man Junpei decided to call Silver for now mumbled. "The room I woke up in had a number on the door, just like that…"

"So you're in the same scenario I was in, eh." the lion said. "My cell was the same. A number marked upon the door. I opened it, ran through the hallway, and found myself in the luxurious room full of stairs, as I suspect, did the rest of you.

"Yeah, yeah! Me too!" the mountain said.

"I-I awoke in the c-cell with a number on the door, just like you!" the man with the bird's nest said as he pointed at the prince.

"Me too! I awoke in a similar room to what you said!" the dancer said.

It became apparent that each and every one of them woke up in a room with a locked door and had to solve a puzzle in order to escape. Each of them met up in the central staircase, almost as if someone was expecting them to meet up.

"So we all experienced the same thing!" the dancer pointed out. "But it's irrelevant right now! We gotta hurry to get out of here!"

"You think I'm brain-dead, lady? Everybody perfectly knows that fact!" Silver argued.

Silver ran towards Door [5] and tried to open it. He pulled the handle many times but it leads to unsuccessful results.

"Move. You're in the way." The mountain said. He tossed Silver aside and he prepared to throw himself at the door.

After 9 unsuccessful attempts, the mountain gave up. The door was clearly going to need something to let it open.

While the others were chatting about their situation, Junpei looked at Door [4]. Next to the door on the wall was a small box.

"No… that's a card reader… Wait… Nope, it's not." Junpei mumbled to himself.

Since it was clearly not the same was the one in the cabin and the door wasn't showing any signs of moving, that device is causing the door to be locked.

At Door [5], Silver, the lion, the mountain, the man with the bird's nest and the prince were trying to open the door by pulling the handle. Junpei joined them and pulled the handle.

"RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!" Junpei screamed in frustration. The door was most definitely locked.

"Damn it, it's locked!" Silver yelled. To take out his anger, he punched the iron door without thinking.

"W-We all know that, you know." the man with the bird's nest said.

"I'm afraid that the door is one big stone wall." the lion said.

"So stop trying to open the door that way then!" the dancer hollered.

Without thinking, Junpei ran away from the arguing group and ran back towards the stairs.

Before he could take a step, he saw another person. It was a girl. She was about the same age as Junpei. He was stunned to see her. Not because of her looks of something rather silly about her but because he saw her before. The girl, too, was momentarily stunned at the sight of Junpei. Her response suggested they did meet before.

The girl didn't move but Junpei walked slowly to her. As soon as he put his foot down, the whole ship shook violently.

"Aah!" the girl cried. She was caught off-guard and fell. By instinct, Junpei leapt towards to her to catch her.

Or so he thought. The girl instead fell on top of Junpei, who was flat on the ground. He was utterly confused and the look on her face suggested she was confused too. The ship had stopped shaking. Both of them stared at each other. Everything was quiet. At last, the girl broke the silence.

"Oh my god… Jumpy, is that you?"

Jumpy… that name rang through Junpei's ears. It only took him nine seconds for him to remember where he had heard that nickname before.

"A-Akane?" Junpei blurted out.

Why didn't he see it before? The girl who was in front of him was Akane Kurashiki. She and Junpei were childhood friends; they went to the same elementary school together for six years. But what is she doing here on this very ship?

At that moment, a speaker had crackled to life and a cold, creepy voice ran through the room. It instantly broke the spell between Junpei and Akane and all of his feelings he had felt before had disappeared into thin air and both of them quickly got themselves back on their feet.

"Welcome aboard. I welcome you all, from the bottom of my heart, to this, my vessel."

Their 7 companions ran back towards the stairs and were desperately trying to locate the source of the voice they had heard. The dancer found it when she spotted the speaker set in the ceiling.

"I am **Zero**… the captain of this ship. I am also the person who invited all 9 of you here."

…

**Phew… that was long for me. It's certainly a lot longer than the first chapter. As you can clearly see, I made a few differences on what happened when everybody first met up. I may be moving a certain event after everybody heard Zero's announcement towards another time. And I placed a couple of parts that foreshadow what is gonna happen and the fate of one person.  
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	3. Binary Game

**Hehe… getting pretty good reception from what I can tell. I'm kind of surprised that nobody caught the foreshadowing parts yet. Hmm… maybe they found it and decided not to tell me? Whatever. I do not own 999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors, the characters, places and whatever are in the game. **

**999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors – Rewritten – Binary Game**

Junpei knew too well about the harsh voice he had heard from the intercom. It was the same voice he had heard from the gas-masked man.

"Hey, Zero! What the hell is all of this? Be a man and come out here!" Silver screeched.

"What are you planning to do with all 9 of us?" the lion clamored.

"I mean for all of you to participate in a game. If I recall correctly, some of you should have a general idea of what this game is. The Nonary Game… It is a game where you will put your life on the line." Zero said monotonously.

"A g-game? But I-I always get the lowest score!" the man with the bird's nest shuddered.

"Nonary Game…?" the dancer mumbled.

"What the hell is a Nonary Game?" the mountain asked.

"The rules of the Nonary Game can be found on your persons." Zero pointed out. "The rules are very straightforward. Read them."

Everybody then proceeded to check their pockets for what Zero had mentioned. After a few seconds, Silver broke the silence.

"Hey… I found something in my pocket. Check it out…"

Silver pulled out a small piece of paper from his pocket and the rest of them had similar results; all of them had small slips of paper in their pockets.

Junpei joined in with the rest of them and checked his pockets. He pulled out a small slip of paper which was slightly wet from the somewhat traumatic experience down at the 3rd class cabin.

"Yep, looks like I got one too!" Junpei confirmed with the others.

"Then it doesn't take us too long to figure out all of us had been given a letter from Zero." The lion spoke up. "Who shall read them?"

"Not me!" the pink-haired girl said. "The lady with the weird outfit should read it then?"

"No. Just no." the dancer said. "The one with the glasses shall read it then."

"I shall p-pass." the bird's nest man said.

Junpei sighed. "Okay, okay, I'll read it."

"On this ship, you will find a handful of doors emblazoned with numbers. Just to make it easier to refer to, we will call them the **numbered doors**. The doors lying in front of you are the pair of the same. The key to opening these doors lies in the **numbered bracelets **that each 9 of you should be wearing. Should you total the amount of a certain number of numbered bracelets and find that the digital root of the sum is the same one as a number on the numbered door, the door will open. That is the only way to open these doors. I advise you not to find any other way. Incidentally, only those who had authenticated to open the door can enter. Of course, there are limits to this rule. The minimum of people to enter the door is 3 and the maximum is 5. All those who enter must leave and all those who enter must contribute."

Junpei stopped reading and looked down at the bracelet attached to his wrist. The bracelet Zero had mentioned had to be the one stuck with him. He looked at everybody else. It appears that everybody else has a bracelet. Junpei continued reading.

"The purpose of the Nonary Game is very simple. Leave this ship alive. It is hidden and concealed but an exit can be found on this ship. Seek a way out… Seek a door that carries a [9]."

Junpei had finished reading the entire letter. Nobody had spoke for a couple of seconds but a sound had crackled from the speaker.

"I have seen that you have read my message to all of you. I have one last thing to tell you before we can start the Nonary Game. As you have no doubt seen, the ship has started to sink towards the ocean floor. On April 14th, 1912… the famous ocean liner Titanic crashed onto an iceberg and had sunk after 2 hours and 40 minutes of lying afloat. I will give you more time. **9 hours**. That is the time you will try to make your escape."

Zero had finished his announcement and the speaker did not make a single sound after that. A sound of a bell rang through the long hallway. It came from the dance hall adjacent to the stairwell. The sound had come from an antique clock stuck on the wall.

7…8…9…

The sound of the 9th bell had faded away. The 10th one had never come. It meant the time was 9 o'clock. Most likely 9 o'clock in the evening. Since Junpei had seen nothing but eternal darkness in the window in his cell, it had to be nighttime. If Zero's announcement was to be believed, all 9 of them had to escape alive by 6 o'clock in the morning.

"Now it is time… let our game begin. I wish you from the bottom of my heart the best of luck." Zero spoke through the speaker before it died out. The speaker never made a single sound after that short announcement.

Silver was cursing at Zero by yelling through the speaker but the rest of them were mentally disturbed and deep in thought. He had thought the same thing as the rest of them. Who was Zero? What was the Nonary Game? Why had he chosen to make them part of it? Was he a sadistic criminal who took delight from playing with his victims? Or was there another purpose to all of this? And why was Junpei chosen to take part of this insane game? Why had any of them been chosen?

But one question was foremost on his mind…

Akane. They hadn't seen each other since elementary school. But why did Zero made her appear now? Was it a coincidence…? No, it couldn't be. It was very unlikely Zero had just chosen 9 random people to play his game. There had to be a reason why Zero had chosen 9 of them.

"Very well!" the lion spoke with an oddly loud voice. "Standing around here all let us kill time! It is best if we get moving now, right?"

"Get moving?" Junpei asked.

"Are you planning to try to open the numbered doors?" Akane asked.

"Wait a minute! Are you gonna do what this Zero person tells us to do?" the dancer spoke up.

"No, no, I wasn't referring to that." the lion answered. He shook his head as a sign of annoyance. "I'm saying that there has to be another way to get out of here. After all, we hadn't investigated this place yet for any clues to our survival."

"What is this, Survivor?" Silver said out of context. "But I see your point. Let's investigate."

"Hey, hold on!" Junpei said. Everybody who had prepared to investigate stopped and stared at him. "Don't we need to exchange information?"

"Exchange information?" the pink-haired girl asked. "What do you mean?"

"We are the players of the Nonary Game yet we know nothing about each other." Junpei replied. "I want to know who you guys are. Who you are, where you come from, why we are all here… Don't tell me I'm the only one thinking that."

Nobody spoke. The dancer looked rather angry, the bird's nest man looked pale as always and the lion looked annoyed. But one of them spoke up. It was Akane.

"I agree. I think Jumpy is right."

"Jumpy…?" the mountain said.

"Oh! I'm sorry about this! I'm talking about him. I call him Jumpy but his name is Junpei." Akane said as she pointed towards Junpei. "We're childhood friends. We went to the same elementary school when we were kids…"

"HOLD IT!" the mountain shouted. "Don't tell us stuff we don't need to know about! Zero's probably got 24/7 surveillance on us! What are you going to do if he's listening on us?"

"Is that a bad thing?" Akane replied.

"Hell yeah it is! We don't know how much that psycho knows about us! Maybe he just found a bunch of random people to kidnap! If that's the case, information we share with each other can be used against each other! Zero could go after our families if we tell each other our names."

"But… it'll be hard for us to refer to each other." Akane pointed out.

"Alright. Then we have codenames then." the mountain answered. It was apparent that this was the easiest and wisest choice to pick.

"Codenames?" Akane asked.

"Yeah, yeah. We'll pick a codename to our liking." the mountain said. "I'll be Seven."

"Why are you Seven?" the dancer asked.

Seven showed his left arm to everybody. His bracelet showed the number 7, explaining the codename he had chosen. It was clear to everybody the general idea of what their codenames would be.

"Oh, so that's what you mean." Silver said. "My codename is going to be Santa. Do any of you schmucks know Japanese? No? Well, "san" means three. So Santa fits me. Plus I do like Santa Claus."

"Then your bracelet number is 3, right?" the pink-haired girl asked.

"Bingo." Santa answered. Santa thrust out his left hand to show his bracelet with the number 3 on it.

"Very well then. I'll go next, shall I? The bracelet number on mine is 1." the lion said as he thrust out his left hand, showing the number 1 bracelet. "Given that, Ace shall be fitting for me."

"Hmph. I'll be Lotus then." the dancer said. "As you should know, a lotus has 8 petals. So you know what my bracelet number is now."

Lotus then thrust out her left hand, showing the number 8 bracelet.

"I would be happy if you could call me Snake." The prince said as he flashed out his number 2 bracelet. "The number on my bracelet is 2. Since Ace has chosen cards, I shall be choosing dice. As you know, snake-eyes is the term when each dice you roll only has a one in it. Since there are two dice, it makes two – my bracelet number. It is particularly relevant for me given the fact I am blind."

Everybody started murmuring about Snake's codename. His eyes were completely closed during the whole ordeal, suggesting a particular reason why they were closed. But to hear he was blind all along shocked him and everybody else. The way Snake had said it sounded so casual. He must have been used to all of this. Everybody didn't know how to respond to all of this but the pink-haired girl was not at all surprised for some reason.

"I want to be Clover." the pink-haired girl said. "You know a 4-leaf clover. It's a symbol of good luck."

As if she was bored, Clover stuck out her left hand that showed the number 4 on it. When everybody looked at Junpei, he stuck out his left hand. It showed the number 5 bracelet.

"Since my number is 5, my codename is going to be-"

"Why have one?" Lotus asked. "We already know your real name. It's Junpei. Giving yourself a nickname is completely pointless, you know."

"O-Oh…" Junpei responded. Everybody had agreed with Lotus's reasoning. Akane then stepped forward, looking rather gloomy.

"T-Then you should call me by my real name too then. Because, it doesn't s-seem too fair for Jumpy then…"

"_Because it's not fair for Jumpy?_ You gotta do better than that." Seven said.

"So you're thinking it's not cool to hide your name once Junpei revealed his?" Santa asked.

Akane was silent the whole time. She was shaking so Junpei had to do something about all of this.

"What's your bracelet number?"

"It's 6…" Akane answered as she stuck out her left hand showing the number 6 bracelet.

"Alright then… Why don't we call you June?" Junpei suggested.

"June? Isn't that the 6th month of the year?" Akane inquired.

"Yep it is. So do you agree?"

"Okay. I'll be June then." Akane said as she finally put up a smile on her face.

So 1 was Ace. 2 was Snake. 3 was Santa. 4 was Clover. 5 was Junpei himself. 6 was Akane, under the name June. 7 was Seven. And 8 was Lotus.

But there was one person left who didn't say anything for a while. The man with the bird's nest and glasses. He looked as pale as ever and he acted very suspicious. Clover approached him with her arms on her hips and her eyes focusing on him.

"What's your bracelet number?" Clover asked.

The man didn't say anything for a while before he responded. "I-Isn't it obvious? Zero h-had kidnapped n-nine people and I'm the only one left. And you know w-what numbers 1-8 a-are."

"So you're 9?" Clover asked.

The nervous man thrust out his left arm, showing his bracelet. On its face showed the number 9.

"Y-Y-Yeah… You g-got t-that r-right..."

"What's your codename?' Clover asked. She looked rather impatient with this man.

"C-C-Codename?"

"Yeah, a codename to call you by throughout the Nonary Game so what's yours?"

"I-I don't need one." the man said. Throughout the entire time, he had extended his arms as though he had seen a ghost. Now, he had stopped, looking serious for the first time.

"Oh? And why don't you need one?" Clover asked with a very angry tone.

"I-I'm not gonna stay here with you p-people. N-Now l-leave m-me alone..." the man responded.

Clover sighed. "Snake, what should I do with him?"

"Since he's not going to cooperate with us, I propose all of use give him a simple nickname to satisfy his needs. I imagine his mind must not been functioning well although I can't blame him. He must have been undergoing a lot of stress." Snake suggested.

"So why can't be leave him here?" Santa suggested with a smirk. "He's probably gonna be useless."

"Now, now. Don't be like that, Santa." Ace said. "Every human being is important in my eyes and every life is worth saving. I think we should give him some time before we'll approach him about this matter."

"Tch. My idea was a lot better." Santa grumbled. Everybody started speaking at once until the man interrupted them.

"Alright, fine! You want a codename?" the man said. He still looked the same as when he was serious but his tone sounded very frustrated.

"Uhh…. Yeah." Junpei answered.

The man waited a few seconds before he looked all nervous again. "My codename i-is very simple. The 9th Man. There. That's my codename."

Nobody spoke. There were too busy staring at him. They looked like they were going to laugh at him but at the same time looked befuddled about his codename.

"The 9th Man… Really? Are you sure you want to be called that from now on?" Ace asked the man. The latter nodded.

"Alright then. Then all of our names are decided. We will call each other these codenames while we are in the ship at all costs." Snake said. "Now, what is our first plan of attack?"

"P-P-Plan?" the 9th Man asked.

"Yes, a plan. We were planning to investigate this place for some ideas for what to do before Junpei had interrupted us." Snake answered. Everybody looked at Junpei as a result. His face turned red at the sight of seven pairs of eyes looking at him.

"S-Sorry about that." Junpei said.

Santa shrugged. "Look, let's start our business right now then. We only have 9 hours before we drown to death."

"Then I propose we split up then." Ace said. "I'll go with Santa, Snake can go with Clover, Junpei can go with June, and Seven, Lotus and the 9th Man will investigate in a group. Anyone have any objections to all of this?"

"Yeah, nobody. I'm getting the hell out of there." Santa said as he walked away from the group. Ace sighed and followed him while the rest of the group walked away.

…

After their investigations were finished, all 9 of them returned to where they left one another. The result of all their searching was… nothing. It is as Zero said. Seeking Door [9] is the only way out. Their investigating had not all gone in vain though. They learned a number of things about the parts of the ship they can currently reach. It seems that they were trapped in Decks A-C. C Deck was as far as they can go though since the reason being D Deck being completely submerged with water. Strangely though, the water level didn't seem to increase. The flow of water was somehow stopped as seen by the surface of the water being extremely smooth. Snake gently drew his hand onto the water.

"Perhaps Zero used some sort of device to stop the flow of water for now." Snake suggested. "Since we have only 9 hours to escape, the flow of water might resume after the time limit ends."

Everybody agreed with Snake's suggestion. It made sense after all. Once 9 hours had passed, the water level will increase, thus sinking them.

"Everyone, please be aware this is only wishful thinking." Snake said. "I'm being a little too hopeful about all of this."

There were 3 metal doors on C Deck. A single door stood off to the side, with 2 more on the wall, facing the central staircase. None of them had numbers painted on them or verification devices to open them. They were locked though like the other doors. No matter what they did, the door didn't show any signs of moving. Ace and Seven even threw themselves at the door but to no avail. The door in the back had a keyhole though. Just above it was a strange symbol that looked like a dot in the middle of a circle.

There were two other doors on C Deck but it was very obvious they were elevators since each of them had a button next to it with a flipped triangle on it. They tried opening the elevator by pushing the button but there was no response. Apparently, there was no power to operate the elevators. To the left of the elevators was a device that was recognized as a card reader. It had a strange symbol on it that looked like a lower-case "h" which has the upper stem dashed.

"It's the symbol for **Saturn**." June explained. "It's an astrological symbol."

"Then this means that there must be more of these symbols throughout the ship." Junpei deduced. "Incidentally, what was the mark on the other door?"

"I think that was the **Sun** symbol." June answered.

They had seen the same symbols on A Deck. Junpei had recalled that Ace mentioned that the doors on A Deck won't open. There was a door on either side of the staircase. The one on the left had a similar symbol engraved on the keyhole.

"That is the **Earth** symbol." June said. "The horizontal lines represent the equator and the vertical lines represent the Prime Meridian. You should know what the equator and the Prime Meridian are, right?"

The ceiling held nothing that exciting as the doors. There was a great circle cut onto it, filled with a gargantuan metal plate. It looked very sturdy and Junpei doubted that anything would destroy the metal plate.

There were several windows on the sides of the ship but they were covered with metal plates. Junpei was doubtful about trying to remove those plates. In other words, they were completely trapped in.

"Great. Just great. We're trapped. All of the exits go nowhere." Junpei asserted with an unhappy tone.

"Well, they have to go somewhere!" Clover said. "We just can't open those doors for the time being. That's why."

"How do you know, Clover?" Seven asked. "For all we know, they could go into metal walls or take us back in to the beginning."

Snake disagreed. "No, they have to go somewhere."

"H-H-How do you know?" the 9th Man inquired.

"Well, what point would there be if the doors lead nowhere?" Snake answered. "And we can open them. Well, only two of them though."

"Wait, are you talking about the numbered doors?" Lotus pried into. "I'm still not going to listen to whoever Zero is!"

Lotus threw herself on Door [4] but to block it instead of trying to open it. She wouldn't budge until it was apparent nobody had a clue on what to do.

Everybody started arguing with each other. It was clear their first step was to enter these doors but the 9 players hadn't reached a consensus about it.

"W-We should enter the d-doors!" the 9th Man said.

"I agree! We'll die if we don't!" Clover spoke.

"No, no! That's a terrible idea!" Santa argued.

"But we don't have any other way to go!" Seven yelled at him.

"We should stay here! Someone's bound to rescue us!" Lotus hollered.

"But we d-don't have t-time for that! If we do, we're all gonna die! Die! Dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" the 9th Man said frantically.

"A half-hour has passed! If we don't do anything, we would have sunk!" Ace said.

"But Zero's probably watching us! He's a sociopath and we're all going to die sooner or later!" June said.

"So that's why we need to stay here!" Lotus yelled.

The clamor of voices was at first easy to identify but as seconds passed, it was impossible to tell who was speaking. It first turned into a small debate then into a fist-fight between Santa and Seven.

Junpei was the only one who had remained silent the whole time but at last he had reached the tipping point.

"Everybody just shut up!"

The 8 of them suddenly stopped arguing with each other and stared at him with great intensity. It had become a habit of them to stare at Junpei like that when he said something out of the blue.

"First of all, Lotus, you have to face the fact that nobody is going to come look for us! And even if they did, Zero had probably made sure to place us on uncharted territory or something!"

Lotus looked like she wanted to zip up Junpei's mouth but she was in no mood to argue.

"Okay, fine. I admit it. The only thing we can do is to enter these doors." Lotus said.

"Hehehe… Nice job, Junpei." Ace said as he gave Junpei a pat on the back.

"And next, we should decide who goes into which door." Junpei suggested. "How about if me, Santa, June, and Lotus enter Door [4] and you guys enter the other door?"

Everybody agreed with Junpei's suggestion. 3+5+6+8= 22, 2+2= 4. 1+2+4+7+9= 23, 2+3= 5. They were about to head towards their respective doors when they had heard someone's voice.

"He… hehe… hehe… Ahahahahahahahahahahaha!"

The laugh could only come from one person: Snake.

"Oh, so you're just going to enter those doors after you verify. Is that it?" Snake asked.

"Uh, yeah. Why are you laughing?" Junpei asked.

"Oh, if only I could see the remains of your explosion. But given that I am blind, I could only paint an image in my head." Snake shrugged off.

"What's so goddamn _funny?_" Santa yelled at him with his fist ready at him.

"Oh, my apologies. But you were just so very _confident!_ No man could help themselves at this laughing matter."

"What the hell?" Santa said out of confusion.

"I've think you would have walked into a death trap if you hadn't known about this!" Snake said as he pulled out something from his pocket.

"W-What?" the 9th Man said.

Snake sighed. "Let me ask you. Do you know how to verify to open a numbered door?"

Unsurprisingly, everybody shook their head. Snake continued.

"I was hoping that Zero would spare me the trouble but it appears he would do nothing but watch us. Here, read this."

The thing Snake had pulled out from his pocket was a card. Ace snatched the card from him but his face looked mildly disappointed when he read the card. Santa snatched from Ace and looked the same way as Ace did. Everybody else read the card and to their disappointment, the whole card was written in braille. The language of the blind.

"Okay, that was the most exciting 30 seconds of my life. Now give me some answers." Lotus said to Snake.

"Very well. Since I am the only one who can read this, all 8 of you should listen well."

"Bracelet number 2… Since you are not blessed with sight, I shall bless you- and only you- - with information. I shall tell you of the function of the RED, of the DEAD, and of the bracelet. The [RED] is the **Recognition Device**. It will verify your number. Besides every numbered door, you will find a RED. The [DEAD] is the **Deactivation** **Device**. It does what is says. Once you have passed through a numbered door, the detonator will activate. You have to use the DEAD to deactivate the detonator. But perhaps you are wondering, 'What does this detonator detonate?' I am afraid this may be something of a surprise. I have placed a small bomb inside of you and the people you are about to meet. You swallowed it while you were unconscious. I am not doubtful that by the time you have read this, the bomb has passed through your stomach and found its way into the small intestine. In other words, you will not be able to regurgitate it. I highly recommend that you don't for your safety."

"As I have briefly mentioned before, the bracelet on your left hand contains a detonator. Think of it as a remote fuse, or [timer], for the bomb inside your body. There is only 1 condition which will cause it to detonate. That condition is that you enter a numbered door. Once you have done so, the timer will activate, no matter who you may be. You will have [81 seconds]. If, after that time, the detonator has not been deactivated, it will send a signal to the bomb in your body, instructing it to explode. In order for you to verify at the DEAD, **everybody who has verified at the RED **must also verify at the DEAD. Once all numbers are verified, all you have to do is to pull the DEAD's lever at its side and the countdown will stop. Anyone who has not verified their number at the RED will be unable to verify at the DEAD. That is to say that if you have passed through a numbered door without verifying at the RED, you will be dead in 81 seconds. You must note that after 9 seconds has passed after you have opened a numbered door, it will automatically close. So as long as the door is open, the DEAD will not function. You will do well if you remember these facts."

"Lastly, let us discuss how to remove the bracelets. There are only two ways to do so. One: you escape from this ship. And two: your heart rate reaches zero. In other words, once the bracelet has been taken outside the confines of this ship or its wearer has its heart rate go to zero, it would automatically shut down. There is no other way to remove these bracelets. If you tried to force the bracelet off several times or trying to deactivate the detonator, you will die. Remember that. This is all the information which I can impart to you. How you choose to use it is for you to decide. If used wisely, you can eliminate those who might be a danger to you. For a time, you would be able to control your fate. I wish you the best of luck."

Snake had finished reading the card and carefully placed it back into his pocket. The message was very long but everybody didn't care about its length; they cared more about what it is trying to tell them. Upon hearing the message that there was a bomb inside them, everybody felt uneasy.

"Hey guys… I think I saw something interesting about Zero." Santa said after 9 seconds of silence. "Zero was wearing some sort of gas mask. That's it though."

Soon, everybody once again gained back their talkative habits.

"Yeah, I saw him wearing a gas mask too!" Lotus confirmed.

"Me too!" Clover said.

"Uh, yep." the 9th Man said.

Soon everybody's stories about what had happened recently were the same. All of them had been abducted at their home at midnight. The man that was presumed to be Zero was wearing a gas mask and soon, white smoke had appeared and each of them had passed out. When they had awoken, they have found themselves in a cell with a 3-level bunk bed in it. However, only Seven's story had lacked the details and instead skipped to the end.

"Oh, me? Yeah, mine was pretty much the same as yours."

Junpei found it somewhat strange that Seven didn't put any detail into his story but decided that it was best to ignore that issue for now. Not only that, he found something that was even stranger.

That was the mystery between the relationship of Snake and Clover. For some strange reason, Snake and Clover had passed out in the same room and woke up in the same cell.

Junpei looked at them thoughtfully before he spoke.

"So what's the deal with the two of you anyway?"

Clover spoke since she had nothing to hide for now. "We're siblings"

"Wait, what?_ Siblings?_"

"Uh… Yeah. Of course. Snake is my older brother obviously so I'm his little sister. Is that really hard to understand?"

"Just out of curiosity, how old are you?" Lotus asked.

"18. Snake's 24."

Santa gasped. "You don't look 18!"

"Well, at least I don't look 25 years old when I'm really 40. Isn't that right, Lotus?"

This time, everybody gasped at Lotus. Everybody started talking to each other about this discovery.

"Alright, I'm 40. Happy now?" Lotus hollered. Her age was clearly something she didn't like to be mentioned.

This discussion took a while before everybody revealed how old they were. Ace was 50, Snake was 24, Santa was 24, Clover was 18, Junpei himself was 21, June was 21, Seven was 45, Lotus was 40 and the 9th Man was 36.

"Are you surprised that we are siblings?" Snake asked.

"Well, yeah but…" Seven said before he decided to drop the issue.

"Why? There are other people who have connections to each other. Those two for example..." Snake said as he pointed at Junpei and June.

"Ah, yes. Those two were childhood friends who went to the same elementary school, were they not?" Ace said.

"You went to school together?"

It was Lotus. She looked like she had an idea of something.

"Y-Yeah…" June answered.

"Hey… Do you think we can figure out who Zero is this way?" Santa asked.

"P-Perhaps." the 9th Man answered.

"Yeah, you're right. Somebody's bound to die sooner or later during the Nonary Game so we can find the connections between the victims and find out who Zero is." Seven said. "Zero probably wants us dead or something."

…

**Okay, that was long for me. But expect the kind of length as a basis for each chapter from now on. As you can see, I skipped the part where the 9****th**** Man dies because it wouldn't have been that much different from the main story if he had died. I'm just going to say that someone's going to die during the middle of the story. I always did wonder where the 9th Man got that knife. Anyway, please read and review!**


	4. Desideratum

**When it comes down to the game, story and the characters are of the utmost importance. I have nothing else to say except it is creepy listening to "Quietus" at night. I do not own 999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors or anything related to it. Oh, and I decided to add the occasional swear in some of the characters' dialogue from now on. It's hardly noticeable to me though.**

**999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors – Rewritten - Desideratum **

"Ahaha! Good one!" Santa scoffed at Seven's suggestion.

"B-But what's so funny a-about it?" the 9th Man asked.

"Excuse me but have you forgotten all about me?" Lotus said once everybody had remembered her. "Junpei, June, in your elementary school, was there a kid who was… rich?"

Rich? What did she mean by that? That was all in Junpei's mind for a very short while before Lotus elaborated on about her question.

"And by rich, I mean immensely rich. As you can see, this ship is rather humongous and it would take tons and tons of money to afford this ship."

"Speaking of which, we are obviously in a ship." Ace interrupted. "But what ship is this? Is this a cruise liner? A war ship?"

"Exactly." Lotus said. "This is no ordinary ship. So, do you remember anyone in your school being possessed with wealth? Because that person may be Zero for all 9 of us know."

Junpei pondered for a moment before he shook his head with June in unison.

"Hmph. Nice try, grandma. But it's not good enough." Santa said to Lotus. It was obviously a sarcastic remark but something tells him that he would not hear the end of it. "Look, are we finished with this crap? Because if we keep thinking about this for the next 9 hours, we'll be toast for sure."

"T-Toast? B-But we are not in a volcano!" the 9th Man pointed out before he figured out it was just a figure of speech.

"Lotus, are you sure this is the work of only one person?" Ace suggested. "This could be the work of an organization or a research group."

"Then that makes us their guinea pigs, right?" Junpei said.

"Guinea pigs? Then that guy in the gas mask was just some member of their organization?" Clover asked.

"Perhaps." Snake answered. "We'll never know for sure until we can get out of this ship."

By the time they had finished their discussion, 1.5 of their 9 hours had already passed. They had only 7.5 hours left until the ship they were in starts sinking,

"Oh, I can tell this is not going to be fun." Junpei mumbled to himself.

…

The first thing they decided to do was related to the numbered doors near them: Door [4] and Door [5].

"So let's begin deciding right now, ignoring Junpei's earlier suggestion." Santa said.

"Wait, _what?_ Why are you ignoring my idea? I just saved you lots of time of thinking and pondering!"

"Because we see you as a really bad decision maker." Clover said bluntly to him. "No offense though. We did just meet you."

"Now to begin, I'll say I want to go to Door [4]. I get the feeling that Door [5] isn't the door for me." Santa said with his hand touching his head.

"I-I guess that Door [4] seems to be my choice then." June said. That was an attention-getter for Junpei.

"W-Wait, you're choosing Door [4]?" Junpei exclaimed.

"Why are you surprised? Were you planning to go to Door [5]?" Ace asked.

This was a decision Junpei had to think carefully now. His own words could be used against him so he had to decide if Door [5] was the ideal door for him now. After a few seconds of thinking, he had reached an answer.

"Nah… I was only surprised… That's all."

"So you're going to Door [4]? Good, now it's my turn then." Ace said. "I choose Door [5]. I'll leave those lovebirds alone with each other in that other door."

Hearing Ace's remark, Lotus immediately responded. "Sorry but I'm going to Door [4] with you then. I'm going to make sure they don't cause any funny business for me."

As Ace chuckled at the disappointed faces of Santa and Junpei, Seven took off his hat and sighed before he spoke up. "I'll go with Ace then. I'm going with Door [5]. How about you, Snake?"

"If you want to know, I'm choosing Door [5] then. Not that I'm disgusted at the people of Door [4] but 5 seems promising to me."

Although there was nothing promising about Snake's reason for Door [5], Clover immediately replied to Snake's answer. "If you're going to Door [5], then I'm coming too!"

Although Snake's blindness couldn't see Clover angrily pointing at him, he could understand Clover's message to him. Junpei expected him to argue back but to jhis surprise, Snake replied coolly.

"Perfect then. We could enter Door [5] then."

"Wait!" the 9th Man shouted at the group. "W-What about me?"

"Hmm… this is a problem." Lotus said. She looked annoyed for a while before she returned to her normal self. "No problem. You could enter either door."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Junpei contended.

"You still haven't caught on, you schmuck?" Santa inquired. "9 is a very special number. It could join any group without changing its digital root."

"O-Oh…" Junpei moaned quietly. The answer he had wanted was so obvious there wasn't any need for him to ask.

"So, which one did you choose?" Ace asked the 9th Man. The way Ace looked at the 9th Man looked strange to Junpei but he brushed it off as an old man's smile to everybody around him.

"Door [5]! … I mean Door [5]." the 9th Man answered.

"So 1+2+4+7+9=23. 2+3=5. Perfect for us! And 3+5+6+8=22. 2+2=4. Perfect for them!" Clover calculated. The answer to their dilemma they had reached was all a waste of time though.

"Wait a minute! That's the suggestion I said earlier! You're just repeating what I just said!" Junpei shouted.

"Ohhh…." Everybody else had said that as a sign of surprise. Junpei gave himself a facepalm because of the ignorance of the other players.

"But hey! It all worked out well for all of us, right? _Right?_" Santa concluded. To Junpei's annoyance, everybody nodded along with him.

"So let us not waste out time anymore! We should enter first." Snake said as he approached the RED next to Door [4], with Clover quickly following him.

"No shit." Santa mumbled to himself.

Ace and the 9th Man soon followed Snake and Clover towards the RED and Ace briefly examined the RED.

"I believe this is a scanner panel, right?" Ace deduced.

"That is correct." Snake said. "All of us have to place our left hand on the scanner panel so it will authenticate."

Without hesitation, Clover placed her hand on the scanner panel of the RED and to nobody's surprise; an asterisk had appeared on the RED.

"I think the asterisk means that Clover has authenticated." the 9th Man conveyed. He had stopped stuttering in his sentences for now.

"Then in that case, we have to authenticate as well." Ace said.

The 9th Man immediately placed his hand on the scanner panel, with a second asterisk appearing. Junpei could have sworn the 9th Man gave a strange look towards Ace but he set aside that issue quickly as Snake and Seven placed their hands on the scanner panel.

As Ace placed his hand on the RED's scanner panel, Seven immediately grabbed the lever needed to open Door [5].

"Good luck. We may part ways but I am sure we will meet again soon." Ace said to the rest of the group at Door [4].

"Yeah… Later." Santa replied.

Seven pulled the lever a few seconds later, causing the doors of the numbered door to be opened. The entrance did not look welcoming but they knew they didn't have a choice. As a second passed after the opening of the door, the 9th Man jumped into the room. No one else entered.

"G-Get in! I'll d-die if you don't!" the 9th Man ordered.

Immediately, Ace, Snake, Clover and Seven quickly rushed towards the 9th Man. Junpei decided to take a closer look at the hallway they were in before he came back to the group of Door [4].

The hallway connecting Door [5] and a nearby room to the left was a rather short one. It didn't look too fancy and elegant but this was one of the many places they will soon forget about once they escaped the ship.

"Hey, Junpei! Come back here!" Lotus barked at him. As soon as he did, Door [5] had closed, with all of the participants who had authenticated on Door [5]'s RED inside the door's short hallway.

"Quick! Come to the door!" Santa hissed at the remaining players. He pressed his ear against Door [5], with the rest following suit.

"I hear a beeping sound… It has to be the detonator on the bracelet!" Junpei noticed.

"According to Zero, they have to find something called the DEAD…" June recalled.

As if they were listening inside the door, a voice rang out. It was Seven.

"Hey, guys! I found something! It's blue and it's a device of some sort! It has to be the DEAD!"

"Then let's hurry!" another voice said. It had to be Ace.

The sound of 5 hands being pressed against the DEAD and a lever being pulled soon followed Ace's voice. The beeping sound faded out a few seconds later.

"Phew… I-It stopped…. W-we're not d-dead!" the 9th Man celebrated. His celebration was very short-lived when Snake spoke up.

"Yes, we're not dead. Just don't do anything stupid and all 9 of us shall be fine."

"Hey, guys!" Clover said. "The DEAD thing you gotta find after you enter a numbered door is just like the RED except that it's blue! That's all! Oh, and to authenticate, it's the same thing with the RED! Just have everybody place their hands on the scanner panel and then pull the lever."

"We got it now!" Lotus responded to Clover's explanation.

"Now, we should start moving now. We can't afford to waste any more time." Ace said. "All of you better be careful."

"Sure, sure…" Santa said.

After a few seconds, the rest of them rushed towards Door [4]. Without any explanation for what they have to do, all four of them proceeded to place their left hand on the RED's scanner panel. The numbered door swung open in response.

"Quick! Run!" Santa said after a millisecond passed.

With nothing to argue about, all four of them ran through Door [4] into the hallway that proceeded in front of their eyes. The moment all of them passed the numbered door, a cold, electronic sound rang through the hallway. It was the detonator from their bracelet.

"Fuck! We gotta find the DEAD!" Santa commanded.

Junpei quickly glanced at his bracelet. Instead of a number, a red flashing skull appeared. The countdown until the explosion had begun.

As soon as everybody looked at their bracelets, the door behind them had closed. There was no point in trying to open the door.

"Quick! Find the damn DEAD!" Santa repeated.

Compared to the hallway behind Door [5], the hallway was very long. The doors were decorated with elegant dressing and the doors were probably made from the finest wood. But there was no time to admire the sight before them. They have to find the DEAD fast.

Everybody started looked manically around them. The doors near them were probably leading them to cabins. It was a worst-case scenario for them if the DEAD is in one of the cabins.

"It's not in the cabin! The door is locked!" Lotus said as she tried to open a random door. Everybody else tried to open another door and sure enough, it was locked.

"Damn it! Where is it?" Junpei growled to himself. It was then that he saw a small red light coming from the end of the hallway.

"That's it! That's the DEAD! It's at the end of the hallway!"

As soon as everybody heard Junpei's message, Junpei started running towards the DEAD and the rest of them immediately followed him towards the end of the hallway.

"H-How many more seconds do we have left?" Santa mentioned.

"How the hell would I know?" Lotus said.

"No, no, we have 81 seconds until the bomb inside us explodes!" June said.

"I know that already!" Santa answered.

It was pointless to argue about this issue; the number one thing on their minds was to find the DEAD. As soon as they reached the end of the hallway, they saw the DEAD placed on the left wall. The sight of it was annoying them rather than pleasuring.

"Hurry up! Authenticate!" Junpei ordered as he placed his left hand on the DEAD's scanner panel. The others gave no hurry and did the same thing as Junpei. Santa quickly pulled the lever of the DEAD. Soon, the beeping sound that annoyed them for the last 60 seconds disappeared into thin air.

While everybody was gasping for their breath, Junpei looked around. Since the bomb inside him wasn't going to explode, nor would Junpei plan to let it blast, there was no harm into looking around.

At the end of the hallway, a set of double-doors stood in front of them. On each side of the hallway, there was a smaller door. All of them looked suspicious and needed inspection but Junpei decided to try the double doors first. Unfortunately, he should have seen it coming when the door wouldn't open. He did notice something else about the door though.

"A keyhole…? And is that the male symbol?" Junpei mumbled to himself. The keyhole had a symbol that had a resemblance to the male symbol.

June corrected his assumption. "No, that's not the symbol of male. It's most likely the symbol of **Mars**."

"Aren't they the same symbol though?" Santa asked. "Because if this is how males are shown, then why are we living here on Earth?"

"Well, yes. They are the same symbol." June said. "But since the other symbols we have found earlier are symbols of planetary bodies, I assume this symbol has to be a planet."

While Santa, June and Junpei were talking, Junpei noticed that Lotus went back to the beginning of the hallway and checked on the other doors. When she went back to report her findings, it didn't take long for a genius to know what she going to say.

"Well, it looks like the other doors wouldn't open. They're locked for sure."

"Wait so does that mean that-"Junpei said before Lotus interrupted him.

"We only have two doors left to check."

Santa looked at the two doors Lotus had mentioned. The one on the left said [B92] and the right one said [B93]. They were room numbers.

"All right. Let's open them!" Junpei said. As Santa and Lotus went towards Room 93, Junpei and June decided to check Door 92. If Zero was right, there shouldn't be anything killing them in these rooms.

"1…2…3!"

When Junpei and Santa opened the doors simultaneously, it was to their surprise that the doors weren't locked.

"Huh. It opened." Lotus said with a bored tone. Since Santa had decided to push himself against the door, he wound up getting injured slightly with Lotus being unharmed.

So now the four of them had to search these rooms for the Mars key to open the door. Junpei had to seek a way out for the second time.

…

Before Junpei started examining the room, he decided to check out the room he was in first. The main part of the room was like a living room. There was a blue sofa present in which Junpei thought it looked comfortable.

There was a display case that was empty and a table that had a box of matches on it in which Junpei took the liberty to take the box of matches.

"This oughta be useful sooner or later." Junpei said. "After all, Zero's the one who is behind all of this."

Junpei later spotted a hallway connecting to another room. There was a rather black-and-white picture up on the wall though.

"This picture looks a little creepy, doesn't it Jumpy?"

Not responding to June's question, Junpei walked through the hallway. The hallway near the entrance had led to the shower room. When Junpei entered inside it, he found particularly nothing interesting about it for now. However, June acted a little weird about the presence of the shower room.

"You know, Jumpy. I do like to take showers… I never took a shower with a guy together before though."

"Uhh… Okay. But it's no time to fool around with each other! We have to find a way out this cabin!"

"Heh… Okay, Jumpy." June said. She was aware that Junpei didn't notice what she was trying to tell him.

When he entered the room connecting the living room of Door 92, he found himself in a room he described as a bedroom. Before he could examine the room, June spoke up.

"Hey, Jumpy… Do you have any ideas on why Zero picked us?"

"Picked us…? You mean for this sick and twisted game?"

"Well, yeah… I mean, this can't be a strange coincidence, right?" June asked.

Deciding not to push the topic, he decided not to answer. After all, he felt like June had nothing to hide from him. He decided to check out the room first. There was a bed lying in front of him with a blue blanket lying on top of it. A dresser was near the bed, one he would check later.

But the first thing he had spotted on the wall had something to hide though.

"Is this a painting…?" Junpei said. "No! This is a ship of the map's interior!"

June gasped. "B-But what is this doing up here?"

"Who cares? This is a great find for us!" Junpei said as he placed the map in his pockets. "I can imagine it will be useful from now on."

"Then that does it. This has to be a cruise liner, right?" June said.

"Well, for someone who kidnapped us, I can't really imagine this as a cruise liner."

"Uhh, Jumpy? Do you remember what Zero mentioned?"

"_On April 14th, 1912… the famous ocean liner Titanic crashed onto an iceberg and had sunk after 2 hours and 40 minutes of lying afloat."_

"Oh yeah! The Titanic!" Junpei recollected. "But are you saying this ship and the Titanic are connected in some way?"

"Maybe…" June said. Her face made her look really unsure now. "I mean, there would have been no point of mentioning it if there's no connection."

"Hey, June. Do you think that this ship is a replica of the Titanic?" Junpei asked her. She looked shocked when she heard the question.

"A replica? Who in the world would build a replica of a sunken ship?"

"Fans. Maniacs. Fans and maniacs of the Titanic."

"No way!" June exclaimed. "It's expensive to afford to build this ship!"

"So? They always find a way to make big money." Junpei replied. "But hey, it's a good business deal for them. Riding aboard a piece of history and knowing that they have a very high chance of dying _surely_ must be a good business deal."

"But do you really think that people would ride a replica of a cruise liner with a very ominous history?" June pondered. "After all, it's the worst maritime accident ever. Over 1500 people had died… It's no surprise to me if you're cursed just for going onto that ship."

"A curse, huh?" Junpei said. "Sorry. No. They're a load of crap for me. I don't believe in those voodoo witchdoctors and stuff. So that must mean you believe in curses, right?"

"You got that right." June answered. She didn't look surprised anymore and returned to her normal self. "In fact, I believe the Titanic had sunk because of a curse."

"Wait, WHAT?"

"The Titanic had sunk because the ship itself was cursed. It was the curse of the Egyptian mummy." June stated while keeping a straight face, which was something Junpei couldn't do at the mention of a mummy. "Let's say that the Titanic carried the mummy of the Egyptian Priestess Amon-Ra. It was stolen from the pyramid by I don't know, tomb robbers or historians. And it was mentioned that the mummy had a history. Everybody involved with this very history had died mysterious deaths. Surely you must have heard of this before…?"

When Junpei shook his head as a "no", June continued. "'Those who open the coffin will have their fate forever cursed'… Come on, are you sure you haven't heard of this one?"

"So you're saying the Titanic sunk to the ocean floor because of that curse?" Junpei said.

"That's right!" June said as she smiled. Her face now screamed excitement.

"Sorry but this is stupid. I don't buy it."

"But it's true!"

"No."

"BUT IT"S TRUE!" June yelled.

"… No."

"But. It's. True!" June said. She looked very uncomfortable and angry now.

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry. But how are so sure it's true?"

"The mummy wasn't your average, run-on-the-mill mummy. It was really mysterious… Something that everybody finds unbelievable."

"And what's so unbelievable about this mummy?"

"Well, for one, she's really pretty." June answered.

"Pretty? Really? She's just a mummy, you know."

"That's right but her body wasn't rotten or anything. It was preserved yet she looked like she was alive."

"Ohh… were you talking about that thing where you body turns into wax or something? If the dead body's placed in the right conditions, the fat in it turns into candle wax and…"

"Yes, you're talking about saponification. But that's not what this mummy was going through." June replied. "She wasn't wax. She was said to be frozen."

"What? Frozen?"

"That's right, Jumpy. They said that the whole body was found frozen. You know how the human body is more the 60 percent water? Yes? Well, all of that water was found frozen. From the time of its discovery to when it was put onto the Titanic, her body never melted. At least, that's what the story says."

After a little bit more discussion, they proceeded back to their investigation. But the Egyptian mummy, ice that wouldn't melt… it wouldn't leave his mind.

When Junpei decided to check the dresser, he found that the only thing he can check was the drawer. And when he did check the drawer, all he found was a key. It was probable that the key was a dresser key. And when he wanted to discuss about the key with June, she was too busy checking herself with the mirror.

"Hey, June. Do you really need to check your looks now? I mean that there isn't a beauty contest taking place here."

Although June stopped checking herself, Junpei had thought he had caught a glimpse of June's angry face.

Seeing as there was nothing else to check out for now, he went back to the living room and back to the entrance of Door 92.

"Hey, Jumpy! Where are you going?"

"I'm just checking Door 93. I promise, I'll come back… really."

As Junpei left Door 92 and entered Door 93, he found himself interrupting Santa's investigation of Door 93.

"What, so you're going to enter MY room now?" Santa asked impolitely.

"Well, to be fair, it was never your room." Junpei replied.

"Here. Have this." Lotus said as she handed Junpei a candle. "There's no flame on it so it's useless to me."

"Useless? That's what you think, Lotus. For I have here a box of matches!"

"Wow. Look at you and your 'big shot, matches-holding' self!" Santa disclosed. "But what are you waiting for? Fire away!"

After Junpei lit the candle, he saw that Door 93 was a mirror counterpart of Door 92. As such, the bedroom he saw was completely dark.

"Well, since you have this candle, you can see what's inside this room." Lotus said as she pointed out the dark room.

"But it gets hot when I'm holding it!" Junpei pointed out as he entered the dark room with Santa and Lotus.

"Then why don't you put it down on top of the dresser?" Lotus suggested.

After putting the candle down, the dark room became partly visible. It didn't show the whole room but there was enough light to examine parts of the bedroom.

"Hey, look. A drawer in a dresser." Junpei said.

"We can't open it. We don't have the key." Lotus said.

"But I do!" Junpei said as he unlocked the drawer. Inside was a plate that had a weird black-and-white design. Junpei could have sworn he saw something similar to this plate.

"Here, Junpei. Catch!" Santa said as he threw something at Junpei. He failed to catch and instead knocked the candle over. It was no longer a lit candle but on closer inspection, it looked like the wax was completely gone. Santa had knocked the candle over when there wasn't any wax at the candle.

"See look what you did?" Lotus said in an attempt to make Santa feel ashamed. This results in an argument but while Santa and Lotus were arguing, Junpei noticed the object Santa threw at him. It looked like a curtain but judging by the looks of it, it was a shower curtain. And when Junpei checked the candlestick, he found that the top resembled a key. Therefore, it was a candlestick key.

By the time Junpei explained his findings to Santa and Lotus, they had stopped arguing. Santa quickly snatched the candlestick key from Junpei.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"You know this display case that's full of shit and stuff?" Santa pointed out. "Guess what? It's locked. And I have a pretty good feeling about this."

When Santa tested the key into the display case, he found out that the display case was unlocked now.

"Hah! I was right!"

When Junpei checked out the art in the display case, he found another plate similar to the one in found in the bedroom. He took it since he had a hunch on what he was supposed to do but decided not to disclose this to Santa and Lotus yet.

"Hey, Junpei. Don't you think this stuff in the display case is rather crappy?" Santa asked for Junpei's opinion.

"Crappy? This is artistic!" Lotus interrupted.

"At least it's artistic crap. You got to admit that, right?"

After Lotus smacked Santa on the cheek, Junpei went into the shower room, ignoring the picture on the hallway to the shower room.

"Why are we here? Unless we're going to…you know." Santa said.

"No, we are not here for that. We're here to hang the shower curtain you threw at me." Junpei said to Santa's somewhat disappointment.

After the shower curtain was hung, there was a very noticeable hole spotted on the curtain.

"Wow. That's a pretty obvious peephole. Looks like someone's pretty dedicated in this kind of…art." Santa remarked.

"Well, this hole is so big that it raises the question if they wanted to be caught." Junpei said.

"Well, the one getting spied at probably is into these kinds of things." Santa said.

"The two are idiots." Lotus said. "If I were to be peeped at, I'll kill the man."

"Well, let's see what happens if you looked through the hole…"

When Junpei peeped through the hole, he could only see a single tile. The tile was, according to him, 5th from the top and 3rd from the right.

"I'm going back to Door 92. I'm going to check something out."

As he arrived back to June, he immediately explained what he had found and quickly went to the shower room. There, he reached for the tile 5th from the top and 3rd from the right.

"Yes! This tile's loose! Now let's see what this is…"

And what he had found was none other than another plate with the familiar design on it.

"Now, I think it's time to go back to Door 93."

"Oh? Already?" June moaned. "Oh well… Come back soon."

Although he was sad for him to leave June alone again, he had to go to Door 93. But when he arrived back, Santa quickly approached him.

"Hey, Junpei. You got a minute?"

"Well, I had 9 hours but I'm going to waste them. What?"

"Here. Take this." Santa took out something from his pocket and waved it around Junpei. It looked like a bookmark and it had a four-leaf clover in it.

"It's a bookmark I found in-between some of the cushions of the sofa." Santa said as he pointed out the sofa which Lotus decided to sit on for the time being. "It's probably useless but we might as well hang onto it."

"Then why don't _you _hold onto it? After all, you're the one who found it."

Santa frowned for a bit then his face flashed an askew smile. "You know what I despise and hate in the world? I got four things: Hope, Faith, Love, and Luck."

"Hope… Faith… Love… Luck…?"

"You got that right. I hate those four things the most."

"You…hate those things?"

"Damn straight. You got a problem with that? This is a free country after all and I do have rights." Santa bluntly said.

"First of all, we're on a ship. Next, I don't have a problem with it but… What does that have to do with the bookmark?"

Santa scratched his head. "Each leaf on the 4-leaf clover has a meaning to it. And that meaning applies to those four words. It's a special language I have no desire to learn. So I want you to have it, okay? I'm shivering at the thought of holding this already. So take the damn bookmark!"

As Santa pretended to shiver at the sight of the bookmark, Junpei was thinking if he should take the bookmark. At last, he made a decision.

"Well, if it makes you shiver that much, I suppose I should just take it." Junpei said as he snatched it.

"Thanks, man. I feel tons better now." Santa said, looking like his normal self again.

"Do you really hate those four words so much?"

"Well, those four things can betray you, you know?" Santa said bitterly. "But that's not my only reason. I just can't bring myself to like the number 4."

"What, you worried about the Four Horsemen?" Junpei joked.

"Hell no! That's just stupid. I'm sure back then it was a scary myth but kids like me don't fall for that crap these days…at least, only I don't. My friends still do."

"But why do you hate the number 4 so much?"

"Because it's a stupid number. It's in-between. It's not the best or the worst. That's why. But 9 is a better number to me. So what if it's the last number? At least it's not some stupid-ass middle number."

Santa's reason made no sense to Junpei. It only caused confusion rather than calmness.

"Hey, Junpei. You play?"

"Play? You mean gambling?"

"Of course, dumbass. What do you think I'm talking about here? In baccarat, the best possible hand to get is 9. But the lowest hand is called a monkey."

"So you're saying that Zero's a monkey." Junpei said. He wasn't sure that Santa was making a joke or not.

To his surprise, Santa looked stunned at Junpei's answer. Then he began to laugh at his joke.

"Ahahahahahaha! Good one! Oh, you're totally right about that! Zero…he's a monkey for sure!"

That was when Lotus spoke up.

"You know, this Nonary Game is like one big game of baccarat. And yes, I have been eavesdropping on you guys. Of course, baccarat doesn't use the concept of digital root. Just drop the tens digit and you get baccarat. Still, the concept is very similar to each other. And in both games, whoever has the 9 has the upper hand in the game and will most likely win."

"So you're saying the 9th Man wins the game. Yeah…I don't think so." Junpei said.

"Don't you remember what Zero said?" Lotus asked. "_It is hidden and concealed but an exit can be found on this ship. Seek a way out… Seek a door that carries a [9]._"

"So if we want everybody to escape this ship, we have to make a team that forms the digital root 9." Junpei said.

"And only those people will get to escape alive…" Santa said.

"But of course! That's why it's called the Nonary Game. What, you don't know? **Nonary **means something deprived from 9 or Base-9. The Latin root "nona" means 9, hence the word nonary. While we are at it, let's go through the other prefixes. Uni means one, in which unary is deprived from 1. Bi means two, in which binary is deprived from 2. Tri means 3, in which that ternary is deprived from 3. Quart means 4, in which quaternary deprives from 4. Quinti means 5, in which quinary deprives from 5. You get the point right?" Lotus explained. "And now, time for more coincidences. How many of us are trapped in this ship?"

"9 of us." Santa answered.

"And what are the bracelet numbers we have?"

"They go to 1 to 9." Junpei answered.

"And how much time we have left until we drown?"

"9 hours…"

"And finally, how do we get out of this ship?"

"Seek a door that carries a 9…"

"By making a team that makes the digital root of 9…" Santa said.

Lotus nodded. "And there you go. The number 9 appears frequently in this game of ours. And that's why it's called the Nonary Game."

After a few seconds, the sound of metal being stressed was heard. It resembled a laugh…a sad laugh of Zero.

"Anyway! You know those plates we found?" Junpei asked.

"Yeah, they have that freaky abstract design on it right?" Santa replied.

"Yep. I found all 3 of them and I think I know what to do."

When Junpei approached the frame hung on the hallway that had only one tile onto it, he placed the three tiles in accordance to the picture he saw in Door 92. Once he got it correct, the picture lowered itself to reveal an empty space with a key lying there.

"Oh yeah! It's the Mars key! Now we can get out!" Santa said.

Once Junpei finished examining the key, he stared at the picture he had completed.

"Hey… What the hell is with this picture?" Santa grumbled.

Lotus heard Santa's grumbling and answered. "I… I'm pretty sure I have seen this picture before."

"Oh? Where?" Junpei said.

"I saw it before in a book. It was about a British biochemist named Sheldrake. He had a theory that had this picture involved."

"And what's the theory?"

"It was about morphogenetic field, which has to rely on the theory of morphic resonance…"

…

**Wow. I somehow made it longer than Binary Game. I'm pretty at the sight of this. **

**Oh, and by the way, when you review, make sure you answer this question: Are you okay with it if I add three new characters not present in the original? **


	5. Ternary Game

**Yeah… Morphogenetic Sorrow. Enough said. And do any of you know why that creepy theme's called "Eternitybox"? And did you know a lot of Mario games are going to come out soon? Yeah, of course you do. You know so much… Too much…**

**999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Hours – Rewritten – Ternary Game **

"Let me guess. This is some 1990s stuff you should know." Santa said. "I bet 10 dollars that she's going to confuse me."

"Honestly, the concept isn't that difficult to understand. In essence, he said that the 'shapes of living organisms and their behavioral patterns are transmitted to a field not seen by the naked eye…" Lotus rambled.

"Junpei, where is my 10 dollars?" Santa demanded.

"So is it really that confusing to you?" Junpei asked.

"Of course it is. This kind of stuff is for universities, not old ladies who read old-fashioned scientific books about scientific stuff." Santa joked. Junpei had lost track of how many times he had made fun of Lotus's age.

"How about this then? Did you ever hear of the 'Theory of the Telepathic Mechanism'? Surely you must have heard about telepathy. Well, it's not exactly telepathy but the concept of it is similar to that."

"HAHAHA! Telepathy, my ass!" Santa guffawed. "What kind of moron would do research on that kind of stuff?"

"Yes, I agree." Lotus said. Her reaction to Santa's remark was surprisingly calm. "I did read the book about the theory but I can't seem to grasp the concept of it. But I can't say I'm in a position to talk to the author about all of this. It could possibly be somebody who took a result from some experiment and turned it into a preposterous theory. There's no scientific worth into that theory."

"And what does that have to do with that picture?" Junpei asked as he pointed at said picture.

"I saw it in his book. Sheldrake, I mean." Lotus said. "Now… what do you think that picture looks like?"

"What? Isn't it just freaky abstract art?" Santa said. Lotus shook her head.

"No, it's a picture of something. Go on. Say it. What do you think it looks like?" Lotus asked Junpei.

After having a little staring contest with the picture, he answered.

"It's a dog? See?" Junpei said as he pointed out the parts of the picture that resembled a dog.

"Ohhhhhh…" Santa said in amazement.

Lotus now looked surprised. "How did you know? But you're correct. I had thought that you wouldn't have seen with this picture really looked like."

Junpei felt like he gained a level in 'Pride'. "So what? At least we know it looks like a dog."

"A TV show on Great Britain did an experiment once. They took 2 similar pictures. At first, both of these pictures may be hard to identify but… Once you see it, you can't get it out of your mind once you see the picture again. The first picture was a woman wearing a hat. The second picture… let's say it was this picture right here." Lotus said as she pointed at the dog picture.

As Lotus explained the experiment to Santa and Junpei, he tried to make out the best possible way to describe the experiment.

First, they sent the two pictures to each country that didn't have British TV and radio. Later, they gathered a bunch of test subjects (roughly 1,000 people) and showed them the pictures. When they were asked what does it looked like to them, the results were this.

9.2% saw the lady in the picture, which wasn't that interesting.

3.9% saw the dog in the picture. As such, the results weren't outstanding.

A couple of days later, the TV show broadcasted a new episode. It revealed the answer to the two pictures. The audience was roughly around 200 thousand people. It could be assumed that over 200,000 people knew the answer to the dog picture now.

After 2 days, they gathered test subjects and repeated their experiment. This time, only 850 people were gathered instead. Of course, they made sure that none of these people had any connections to the audience or the people doing the first experiment. They were given the same question but now the results were shocking.

10% of the people saw the lady in the picture. Not a big improvement but at least it was something.

6.8% of the people saw the dog in the picture. Now this was very significant for they had made sure they had no previous knowledge of the dog picture.

"So now do you understand? The second group living in completely different areas of the world somehow knew the answer to a problem they have no knowledge of knowing. How? How did they know?"

"So it is related to that morphogenetic field you were talking about earlier?" Junpei said. "If more people knew the answer, the information could transfer to the field and transfer to the second group."

"Perhaps…" Lotus said. "But we're wasting time. Let's go to the Mars door."

"Hey, Junpei." Santa whispered to him. "Do you think what Lotus said was true? After all, telepathy simply can't exist!"

"Ehh… she's probably joking. So pretend she's joking and you won't be creeped out by Sheldrake and the British." Junpei advised.

"Who said I was scared?" Santa scoffed at him although deep down, Junpei could possibly be right.

But to Junpei, the field not visible to the naked eye seems to be having settled in his head now. The concept of it seemed far too important to ignore. Perhaps he could ignore it somehow…

After Santa went to Door 92 to get June, all four of them went out into the hallway. Junpei quickly used the Mars key to unlock the big door standing out in the hallway and the door had swung open.

"Alright! We found a way out!" Santa said which resulted in everybody glaring at him. "What? I said 'we'."

The four of them immediately stepped through the door with no intention of coming back to the rooms they were in ever and found themselves into a wide hallway. They took a few seconds to get used to their surroundings.

Two elevators lay in front of them. Junpei decided to check them out later. A couple of chairs emblazoned with pink color lay near it for comfort to people. A carpet that was long as a snake lay in front of the elevators.

A short distance away, a metal grate had extended into the width of the hallway. It was pretty obvious it had no plans to move from its spot.

The elevators spotted earlier wouldn't function though. A few pushes of the buttons say enough about their efforts. The elevators were probably not powered.

There was a nearby door they have yet to check out. Having no choice, Junpei quietly turned the knob and opened the door.

The room they had entered was nowhere as extravagant as the earlier rooms they were in. The room was a kitchen that was unimpressively dull in color. Everything, including the counters, sinks and the grill were brown in color. The plates were one of the few exceptions in the color of the kitchen.

"Damn it. This isn't the exit." Santa grumbled.

"Expecting an exit?" Junpei mocked. "Too bad. Puzzle time."

"Hehe…" June chuckled to herself.

While they were talking, Lotus decided to explore the kitchen. She soon found another door. A card reader was nearby, with a red light flashing in the card reader.

"I think that if we can find the card needed to get out of this room, we can go to the other side of the grate we saw earlier."

Since there was no real need to see if the door was unlocked, Junpei grabbed the map he found earlier and spread it out in front of him to look at.

As he did though, Lotus and Santa looked surprised at the sight of the map. It was then that Junpei did not tell them about the map he had found earlier.

"H-Hey!"

"W-What the hell is that?"

"It's the map I found in Room 92 earlier. It's the map of B Deck-" Junpei said before his map got snatched by Lotus.

"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm…." Lotus said while she was looking through the map. "I knew it. See, look?"

Curious to see what Lotus was talking about, the three of them looked at the map.

"We go through that door and we go to the other side of the grate. I was right."

There was a small room drawn near the grate. It was most definitely the kitchen. Lotus then folded the map and gave it back to Junpei. He slipped the map back into his pocket.

"So now we need to find the card to get out of here. Let's go!" Junpei said.

…

The first thing Junpei did was to look at the plates on the counter. Out of the blue, Lotus said something interesting.

"Junpei, do you know what the hexadecimal system is?"

As he had heard no such thing, Junpei shook his head.

"Well, the hexadecimal system goes something like this: 8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F,10,11,etc. Something like that. But are you familiar with base-10? That's the normal system of numbers. The base-10 equivalents of these numbers are like this. A=10, B=11, C=12, D=13, E=14, F=15, 10=16, and so on."

"But why are you mentioning the hexadecimal system to me right now?"

"Look at the voucher."

Junpei looked at said voucher lying on the counter. It said "Appetizer 9, Meat dish 10, Soup A, and Seafood dish F." But when the plates were counted, there were "9 appetizer plates, 16 meat dishes, 10 soup dishes and 15 seafood dishes. It didn't take long for him to figure out how the hexadecimal system worked out in base-10. 10 in base-10 is 16, A in base-10 is 10 and F in base-10 is 15.

"Do you see? The hexadecimal system may be important here in the Nonary Game. Remember it, Junpei." Lotus advised.

After the discussion, Junpei decided to check the room on the right. Inside the room looked like a storage room. On the shelves of the room lied numerous amounts of cheese. Behind the second cheese on the second row had a bottle of oil lying there. Junpei decided to take that for safe-keeping. The box on the second shelf had something interesting when Junpei opened it.

"A-A knife!" Junpei exclaimed before he examined it any further. "Hmm… it's pretty rusty. I can't use it like this though. Maybe a whetstone or something would help."

June spoke up. "It's futile."

"Futile…? What's futile?"

"Futile means pointless, useless, not needed…"

"I know what futile means!" Junpei said. "But what made you bring that up?"

"No reason, really… But I was thinking about Futility." June answered who looked like she didn't have a care in the world.

"Futility? What made you think that?"

"Well, it's related to the Titanic…"

Titanic… That name popped in Junpei's head again. He had that discussion about the Titanic back at the rooms Junpei decided to call the 2nd class cabins.

"The Titanic?"

"Yep."

Cue creepy music, Junpei thought. Was June really that much of a Titanic fan?

"Have you ever heard of the story that the Titanic's sinking was predicted?" June asked.

By this point, June was making no sense whatsoever. He had to ask what the story was though.

"No, I haven't. What is it?"

"In 1892, 14 years before the sinking of the Titanic occurred… A novel was published. It was called Futility. An American novelist named Morgan Robertson wrote that novel. The synopsis of the story was about a big cruise liner crashing onto an iceberg and sinking. Of course, if that was the only similarity, there wouldn't been that much interest into mentioning it. It wasn't though. The nationality, the name of the ship, course and departure time… They were the exact same as the Titanic. Not only have that, the size, displacement, maximum speed, numbered of passengers and crew, the number of lifeboats… All of them matched the Titanic. Even the location of the collision, the time and the cause matched the Titanic. Those elements matched the Titanic almost exactly." June rambled. Her thinking was very preposterous but she did have a point. Could it have been one huge coincidence?

"You know, it's scary once you think about it." June said. "An author 'predicting' a maritime incident…it's almost as if he saw it coming."

"Wait a minute; you said Futility was written 14 years ago! How is that possible?" Junpei asked in disbelief. He knew that this was the first of many crazy theories he would heard from his companions.

"But wait! That's not all! Futility wasn't the only thing predicting the Titanic's sinking. Two other similar books written by William Thomas Stead predicted it as well. And both of them were published beforehand. The main cause of the passengers' death was similar in those two books; they had died because there weren't enough lifeboats."

"Hmm… Fine, it's possible that both of these books were really predictions in disguises but I'm pretty sure back then, ships colliding with icebergs were common back then like a sport!"

"Right…" June said annoyingly. "But what if Stead had some sort of special power? Could he have the ability of automatic writing? "

"Wait, do you mean possession? Because that's just stupid right there. It's bullshit. But in this case, let's say that automatic writing isn't stupid and actually makes sense. Predicting the sinking of the Titanic would still be impossible. When Stead wrote his books, nobody had died on the Titanic yet. So possession is out of the question now. No one could have possessed him." Junpei explained his reasoning.

"No, no, that's not it." June said calmly. She looked unmoved by Junpei's explanation. "Stead wasn't possessed. He was doing the possessing. He was the possessor."

"… What is that you smoke these days? Is it wee-"

"Let me finish, Jumpy. Stead was a passenger on the Titanic. All he really did was to write down what he saw in his very own eyes. He did that 20 years before it happened."

"Okay, now you're not making any sense. Unless you're saying Stead had a time machine, what you're saying is nonsense."

"Exactly. It was nonsense form the beginning yet Stead knew."

Junpei decided it was best to say nothing about this madness June was speaking to him. He left the storage room with June, who looked nothing short of flustered.

…

Back in the main room of the kitchen, Junpei decided to check out the sinks. When he did, he had found a whetstone.

"Alright, a whetstone! If I use this with the knife, it'll be good as new."

As he sharpened the knife, he heard Santa and Lotus talking to each other.

"Hey, Lotus. Can you cook?"

"What? Of course I can! I am a mother after all."

"A mother certainly wouldn't show their chest like that in front of their children, wouldn't they? Unless your mother showed that much in the '80s." Santa laughed at his own joke but a smack from Lotus laughed at something else besides his joke.

After sharpening the knife with the whetstone, he decided to check out the other rooms. There was one door that Santa said he couldn't open.

"The lock's rusted or something. We need some oil or something." Lotus said as she examined the lock. "Why don't use the cooking oil you have, Junpei?"

When he did, the lock soon opened.

"Yes! The damn lock's now open!" Santa said in celebration.

However, he had nothing to celebrate when the four of them entered the room and was greeted with a blast of cold air.

By instinct, Junpei folded his arms around his chest. He was conserving body heat and Santa was doing the same thing.

The room they were in was clearly not suitable for the four of them. There was a small cabinet on the floor and a mini-freezer onto the left. On the right was a shelf used to store certain things.

"Damn, it's cold in here. Too cold…" Junpei said.

"It's the f-freezer, dumbass. It's s-supposed to be that c-cold." Santa snorted at him.

The way Santa and Lotus are dressed are clearly not suited for coldness. Only Lotus seemed to have a problem with it though.

"I'm getting out of h-here! It's too cold for me!"

"Well, of course. Your chest surely must be that freezing."

As Lotus marched out of the freezer, June shivered. "It's cold in here, jumpy. Why don't you hold no to me so I don't freeze to death…?"

"Aha! No." Santa said.

Before June could argue with Santa, the sound of a metal door closing was heard. The three of them simultaneously turned around to see the door they had just entered with closed.

When the three of them rushed to the door, Junpei tried to open the door by grabbing the doorknob. No response.

"Phhhhhf. Ahhhhhhh!"

The doorknob was beyond cold when Junpei touched it. That was because it was frozen solid.

The pipe near the door had broken and water was spilling out of it. The water must have gotten onto the doorknob and had frozen into ice. Santa quickly pounded on the door.

"LOTUS! Open the door! Open the door!"

A response was immediately heard. "What is it that you want?"

"The door won't open! Try opening it!"

"Ugh. Looks like I have no choice then."

Lotus's efforts to open the door were soon heard. But the response they heard wasn't the one they wanted to hear.

"... It's no use. It won't budge. But hey, three heads are better than one. You find a way out."

"Goddamnit!" Santa yelled, furious to Lotus's laziness.

"L-Let's find a way out ourselves then." June said.

"And let's hurry! It's too damn cold in here!" Junpei said as he shivered.

…

**This chapter isn't as long as Desideratum for good reason. Lotus's explanation of Sheldrake was somehow boring to me and June absolutely made no sense with Stead and the Titanic. And it's quiet. Too quiet… Anyway, please read and review and wait for the next chapter next week (hopefully). **


	6. Inclemency

**Sorry I haven't updated in a long time. But I was a bit unmotivated to write this for a while until I decided to continue.**

**999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors – Inclemency**

"You know, while we're in here, we should do something." Santa suggested.

"Yeah. TRY TO ESCAPE!" Junpei exclaimed. "We're gonna freeze to death if we don't get out of here soon!"

Santa shivered and walked to the freezer and opened it. "Here!"

Santa threw a pack of what it looked like dry ice at Junpei. Although it wasn't relatively interesting since they were in a freezer, it was at least something to them.

"Hey, can't y-you make d-dry ice explode if you s-seal it in something that's completely airtight?" Santa asked.

"M-Maybe. Why don't you try, Jumpy?" June asked.

"But I don't have an airtight container, June." Junpei replied. "That explosion idea may give us the route of escape to us!"

"Hey…" Santa said. "Dry ice is just CO2, right?"

"You mean carbon dioxide?" June asked.

"Of course, you moron. I bet you weren't very smart back in elementary school." Santa said.

Junpei's face was reddened. "W-Well, I was a little out of the norm…"

"Aha! So I-I was r-right!" Santa said with a shivered tone. "A-Anyway, do you guys know how warm this has to be to be converted to gas again?"

"Nope. Not a thing about this dry ice. Why are you asking me this anyway?" Junpei said as he opened the cellar on the floor and grabbed a rope and a bottle out of it.

"I figured that science would help us get out of this predicament." Santa said.

"Yes, because anything is possible with the power of science!" Junpei said mockingly.

June spoke up. "To a-anwser your question, S-S-Santa, carbon dioxide's sublimation point is -109 degrees. If it gets warmer, it turns into gas. If it gets colder, it turns into a solid."

"Wait, how do you know about all of this? It's not like that kind of stuff's gonna help you." Junpei said.

"I am the master of remembering random things." June said. Junpei sighed as there was no point asking for a serious answer from her.

"Don't showoff now." Santa whispered although it was just as loud to hear as his normal voice.

"Yeppppppp…." June said.

"Is your mouth numb?" Junpei asked out of concern.

"Nope."

"… Please don't do that again, June."

"Aww, looks like someone never learned to take a joke." Santa laughed.

June giggled. "Fine, fine, I won't. No promises though."

"Stop it, guys. Now's not the time for jokes, Junpei." Santa said. Junpei was dumbfounded since it was June who made the joke, not him. "Anyway, why doesn't it turn into a liquid first?"

Santa started shivering at an astonishing rate and he shivered so much that Junpei really wanted to get out of the freezer fast. Junpei had thought to want to get out of the freezer first than tell stories later but he wasn't sure if the coldness had sharpened his curiously of science.

"Wait. It can turn it a liquid. If you put CO2 under high enough pressure, but at 1 atmosphere, normal air pressure won't turn into a liquid. It'll start sublimating instead of melting and it will turn into a gas instead of a solid." June said.

"That's weird. Water's a liquid that is between 32 degrees and 212 degrees. So why isn't that the same for carbon dioxide?" Santa wondered.

"Actually, there's a kind of ice that doesn't turn into liquid when it goes above 32 degrees." June said, stunning both Junpei and Santa.

"What?" Junpei exclaimed as he realized he was now trapped in their world of science.

"Yeak, I know. Shocking, right?" June responded. "But it _does_ have a melting point, which is 96 degrees."

"Ice that melts at 96 degrees?" Junpei repeated.

"Wait, so there's water that freezes at 96 degrees?" Santa said.

"Well, yeah."

The freezer was extremely cold for Junpei to bear as he got a frozen piece of pork from a shelf and laid it on the ground but he was interested in June's ice story.

After he warmed himself, he asked: "So what is this ice that won't melt at 96 degrees?"

"**Ice-9**. That is its name." June said. "It was originally a made-up substance that came from a sci-fi novelist. But as it turns out, scientists had discovered that this substance was actually real after all."

"Wait, wait, wait…" Junpei said. "Is this ice-9 water?"

"Didn't you hear her? If it reaches over 900-I mean, 96 degrees, it would reach its melting point and would turn back into water." Santa answered.

"You can think of it like diamonds and graphite. They're both made of carbon but depending on its structure of the crystallization, the hardness and structure, they're both completely different."

Junpei nodded along since he was pretty sure he was going to forget all of that in a couple of days so he starting scribbling a basic summarization of what they said in his notebook.

"Have you ever heard the story about the crystallization of glycerin?" June asked, with Santa and Junpei nodding no. "For about 150 years after glycerin was discovered, people had decided to cool it, warm it, you name it. But no matter what they did, it had never crystallized. However, one day in 1920, a group of glycerin that was being shipped to England was discovered to have crystallized."

"Hmm?" both Santa and Junpei said.

"An international team of researchers was formed to research this crystallization." June said. "They were called Cradle. Anyway, they were studying a sample of the original crystallized substance. With this seed of the crystallized substance, further crystallization of glycerin would be an easy feat. However… Something very strange happened…"

"W-What is it?"

"Not only did the glycerin encouraged by seed crystals have crystallized, other samples had crystallized as well. After that day passed, every substance of glycerin worldwide had turned into crystal when cooled to below 64 degrees. But before that day, glycerin wouldn't crystallize no matter how cool it became. Now that the crystallization has begun… It was like that all the glycerin had gone through a chain reaction of some sort."

"Y-You mean they were… Communicating?" Santa asked.

"In a way, yes." June answered.

After finishing the summarization of the story of glycerin in his notebook, Junpei felt impressed about June's knowledge of science.

"Wow… That's some crazy story. But what does that have to do with ice-9?"

Now, it was Santa's turn to be the conductor of the train of science. "What she's saying is that both glycerin and ice-9 are sort of similar to each other."

"Really? That'll be a colossal mess if water everywhere had started to freeze at 96 degrees." Junpei commented.

"Yep. It'll be the end of the world as we know it." Santa said with little concern. "But let's let the next generation worry about that."

"Okay, good. I just have one more question." Junpei said.

"What?" both Santa and June said.

"Why are we talking about this in a freezer that we're trapped in?"

"… I don't know. I guess if we're going to die, at least we should die doing something interesting." Santa said calmly.

"Yeah? Well, Lotus is going to die without us surviving so let's the hell out of this place quick!"

After that, Junpei quickly rushed to the freezer Santa had got the dry ice from and took out a frozen chicken from it.

"It's hard. It's frozen stiff." June commented.

"…"

"…"

"Don't even think about it." Santa said.

"Fine, fine." Junpei said as he held up the chicken. "But I'm going to do this!"

Junpei took out the dry ice and starting smashing the dry ice with the chicken.

"There. It's all in pieces now."

"Gee, I can't think on how this is gonna help us." Santa said as he held the dry ice, which was now crumbled.

"Hey, Santa. Put the dry ice in this bottle and tie it with the rope, would ya?"

"Fine. But what is going on in your mind?"

"Oh, you'll see, sooner or later."

…

"Okay. It's done. I did what you asked me to do. Now what?" Santa asked.

"Now what? We tie it to the doorknob, let some water in the bottle and whack it with some dry ice. That way, it'll explode." Junpei said although it pictured it completely different than his two other companions.

After Santa quickly tied it to the doorknob, he realized something.

"Wait, what about us? We have to hide somewhere so we don't get hurt!"

"Well… We can hide in the cellar so we can be unharmed." June suggested.

"Good idea." Santa said as he rushed off into the cellar. June soon followed him and Junpei, who was carrying the pork and some dry ice with him.

After all three of them were in the cellar, all Junpei needed to do was to throw some dry ice at the bottle.

"Wait! Let me do it!" Santa interrupted. He quickly snatched the dry ice from Junpei and threw it at the bottle, with them quickly ducking for cover.

A second later, a sound of an explosion was heard. It was the dry ice hitting the bottle. Soon, Junpei leapt out of the cellar and checked the door.

"Hey! The ice on the door is gone!"

Sighing with relief, Santa and June walked out of the cellar and towards the door.

"Hey, you gonna carry the pork?" Santa asked.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Let me carry it. Now let's get out of here."

As Junpei gave the pork to Santa and opened the door, all three of them quickly walked out of the freezer and closed the door.

"Phew! That was close." Junpei said out of relief.

"MOVE!" Santa exclaimed as he ran towards the grill and touched it.

"… OWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! Ow! Ow! Ow!" Santa cried painfully.

While Santa was warming himself, Junpei took the chance to heat up the pork. A few seconds later, Junpei noticed a piece of paper attached to it. Now that the pork was warm, he could take the paper out.

"C+10+F? What does that mean?" Junpei pondered.

"Oh! It's you guys! You're finally back. I was only beginning to worry about you three."

Junpei, Santa, and June all looked up. It was Lotus, who was sitting at a nearby counter.

Their reactions to Lotus's welcome-back message had been far from welcoming. June merely said nothing while Santa scowled at her. Junpei, on the other hand, walked towards Lotus.

"What… What the hell were you doing while we were in there?"

"Yeah! What were you doing, Lotus?" Santa said.

"Me? Oh, I was just waiting for you guys. I figured you would get out and you did. Congratulations."

"But we were gonna die in that hellhole!" Santa yelled at Lotus.

"But you didn't, right? Everything worked out for the best for everybody."

"Lotus… You're not serious, right?" June asked.

"Ha ha! You're right! I'm just kidding. It may not look like it but I was seriously worried about you guys." Lotus said with an annoyed expression on her face.

"That's total BS right there!" Junpei screamed. "You weren't worried about us, weren't you?"

"But I was! Think about it! If you died, I would have been in serious trouble." Lotus replied. "You stuck in there and I'll die out here."

"But you did nothing?" Santa yelled.

"Oh, but I did do something. I did look around for something to help you guys but you guys figured it out on your own. I did all I could do."

"Should have realized with age comes stupidity…" Santa whispered. It was loud enough for Lotus to hear.

"Listen, you little brat!" Lotus screamed at Santa. "There was nothing I could do! I found nothing to help you!"

June looked shocked. "Lotus, calm down…"

Within a few seconds, Lotus did calm down. "Look, if you died in there, I might not be able to get out of this room."

"Fine, fine." Junpei said. He was still unsure if Lotus was serious about her answer but he had one more thing to ask. "Hey, Lotus. You didn't close the door… Did you?"

"W-WHAT? You think I was so daring to close the door on you? I have no reason to do that!"

"So it closed on its own?" June asked.

"Yes! I know it did!"

As much as Junpei didn't want to admit it, Lotus was right. She had no reason to shut the door on them. If she wanted to kill them, she could have barred the door from the outside. But she didn't. She didn't do anything. And even if she did, she would die too. Lotus would have shut off any possible routes of escape.

"Fine. I'm sorry for doubting you about the door and whatnot." Junpei apologized.

Lotus soon turned annoyed. "Oh? You apologized? To me?"

"Yes, he did." Santa said.

"Oh. Well… That's right! As long as you understand that I didn't do anything, it's okay." Lotus said as she sat back on the counter.

This was the final straw for Santa. He walked up to Lotus with murder in his eyes.

"What is it now?"

"Hey, your break time's now over! Get your fat ass down from that counter and start working! You had done nothing while we were in a life-to-death situation!"

"WHAT? How rude of you to talk down on me like that! I told you, I did try to do something!"

While Santa and Lotus were busy arguing, June giggled.

"Don't you think both of them need to take a chill pill, Jumpy?"

"Yeah? Well, I'll open the freezer door, put the two of them in it and shut the door there. We can hear them arguing in the cold. Now that's a chill pill."

June giggled at Junpei's joke.

…

**Well… They're out of the freezer. I'll try to update at a weekly basis if I can from now on. Don't expect any promises though. As always, please read and review!**


	7. Rendezvous

**Now, it's time for something which isn't completely different. **

**999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors – Rendezvous**

"Okay… I've placed the meat on the grill. What now?" Junpei said.

"Wait a minute! What if the paper burns?" Lotus angrily asked.

"You mean the paper attached to the meat?" Santa replied. "Don't worry. It's not going to immediately burn, you know."

"Just keep an eye on it, okay?" Lotus insisted.

After a couple of minutes had passed, Junpei was able to take the paper out using the knife he had sharpened to cut the pork out.

"Why didn't you let me cut the meat?" Santa asked.

"You don't seem that good with a knife." June remarked.

"Really?" was all that Santa had to say.

"Anyway, the note attached to the pork says 'C+10+F'." Lotus read. "I think it's a code of some sort. But a code to what…?"

"Oh, come on! I hate codes!" Santa grumbled. "Anyway, what does C and F mean? I can tell that in this case, they are not letters."

But while they were talking about the code, Junpei had walked to the safe which he couldn't open. There was a password needed to open the safe but there were only numbers to put in.

"Hey, Junpei. Since there seems to be addition involved with the code, maybe you have to convert C and F to numbers." Lotus advised. "Try converting it to hexadecimal."

"Okay, okay." said Junpei. "So C+10+F turns into 12+10+15?"

"No, no!" Lotus exclaimed. "Remember that 10 is 16 in base-10!"

"Oh yeah… I forgot about that. So the answer is 43, right?"

"Why don't you try to see if you're right?" Santa said.

Junpei pressed the numbers 4 and 3 to form 43 and clicked the enter button to submit his answer. The safe responsively opened and when Junpei peeked into it, all he could find was a key card.

"The symbol on the key card is **Saturn**." June said. "If I recall correctly, there was an elevator with this symbol near the main staircase."

"Oh, yeah. You are right, But what good is the card to help us escape this damn room?" Santa replied.

"Wait a minute… wasn't there another door in this room that you needed a key card to open with?" Junpei asked.

"There is...!" Santa said. "Quick, go there!"

Junpei quickly went to the door with the scanner and scanned the key card onto it.

"Hey, guys! I think the door is unlocked now!"

Lotus, Santa, and June quickly responded by leaving the kitchen. Junpei followed them.

"Phew! We've finally left that room!" Junpei said.

When they did step out of the kitchen, they found themselves in a hallway that had seen before. There was a metal grate which had stretched in one part of the hallway. The other side of the grate contains two elevators and the entrance to a certain kitchen. They had basically gone to the other side via kitchen. The map of the ship's interior was correct.

When Junpei peered into the map, he saw that there were four possible routes they can take. The first two led them into an L-shaped room but when Lotus tried to open the door, it was locked. The third route led them back to the main staircase, which means it was door [5].

"I don't think we're going to meet up with them if we go that way." June said. "If you look by the stairs, you can see that the gate nearby is open when it was previously closed. So it means that they had opened it beforehand."

"So if we take that route, it's just counterproductive." Santa said.

"Which means that we have only one route left." Junpei said as he closed the map. "We have to go down the stairs."

"I hate stairs." Santa remarked.

"Nobody cares." Lotus responded.

After their little discussion ended, the four of them went down the stairs and had found themselves in C Deck. When they tried to go below towards another floor, they had found that D Deck was brimmed with sea water.

"Just like the bottom of the central staircase…" Lotus said. "We can't go below it. At least the water hasn't risen up yet."

When they had turned back to C Deck, it took only a matter of seconds to find a pair of elevators in front of the stairs. They looked like imposters of the elevators on the top floor but the only thing they haven't copied from was that these elevators had a card reader on the wall separating them. The card reader had yet another peculiar symbol.

"Hey look, guys. It's Lotus's symbol." Junpei pointed out.

"Ehh?" Lotus responded. "What are you talking about?"

"See, look! You can clearly see it's the woman symbol with a thorn on it so-"

Before Junpei can finish his observation, Lotus had grabbed upon his hair and had shaken him violently. Junpei now thought if Lotus really wasn't the Devil itself but something else entirely.

"Aha. Anyway, this is the **Mercury **symbol. The thorn is actually supposed to symbolize the wings on Hermes's staff." June pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Look, if we can't get these elevators to function somehow, then they are not going to leave anytime soon." Santa said. "We need a key card with the Mercury symbol on it then we can actually do something for once."

They ignored the elevators for the time being and went back towards the stairs. A nearby hallway was at their left. There were many doors placed upon this hallway. The exact number is unknown but it was disappointing nonetheless.

"Let's not search any of them for now." Junpei advised. "We have to meet up with the others."

They frustratingly walked back to the stairs and found that to their right was a small hallway of non-epic proportions. They quickly headed into it…

… And found themselves in another hallway. It was approximately the same size as the alcove in front of the stairs they just passed. This hallway led towards the stern and at the end was a set of two doors.

"Let's go in."

Junpei opened the closest set of doors near him and him and his fellow companions entered the doors.

What they have stumbled upon was indescribable at first sight.

The room they were in had many rows of many beds of dull color and uncomforting. There were 3 doors splattered with red paint, with the numbers [3], [7], and [8] upon it. There was one other door with not paint on it, which actually looked out of place for him.

"This… This looks like a hospital." June responded.

It did look like one. The whole room smelled like antiseptic. In the center was a line of shelves stacked with medicines and medical devices whose functions Junpei dared not to look upon.

"Maybe we should look at the doors first." Lotus said.

But when he tried to open the 4 doors, they reacted like a stone wall.

"Wait a minute…" said Lotus. "Look at the REDs. It isn't displaying anything. Is it broken?"

When they looked at the REDs, the message "VACANT" was not there. There was only one way to find out. All 4 of them placed their hand on the RED only to find that it didn't respond. And to their disappointment, all of the REDs acted like that.

"Yep… They're broken." Santa said. "I can tell that Zero sucks at maintenance."

"No… Zero purposely left these REDs like that during the entire time the game began." Lotus said. "He can't make one simple mistake after all of this."

"Whatever it was a mistake or not, it sure doesn't fix these REDs, you know?" Santa said.

"That's because the bottom of the devices had been removed."

A familiar voice had ringed throughout the room and all four of them recognized it immediately. They quickly turned around.

"Snake!"

But it wasn't just Snake that appeared in front of their eyes. Clover, Seven, Ace and the 9th Man had entered too. Although it was not at all surprising that they had crossed paths again, there was a certain level of comfort to see each other again. The other party had opened the gate for them that had led to C Deck so they eventually had to encounter each other again. Snake's team however looked surprised.

"How…?" Clover said.

"Did…?" Seven said.

"You …?" the 9th Man said.

"End up here?" Ace asked.

…

After a couple minutes of solitude and shock had passed, all 9 of them started talking at once. They seemed desperate to exchange as much information as possible. All of them talked about the rooms they had ventured through and how they ended up in the same place. None of their information was overly useful but it hardly mattered to them.

The thought of seeing each other again was simply joyful. Although the level of cheer had varied for each of the 9 persons, they were nevertheless still happy. Junpei thought they were happy since none of them had died since their separation but that was understandable. The thought of having a bomb in your intestine explode was horrifying and Junpei hoped that he would never see any of his fellow companions end up in that gruesome fate.

"…So there you have it. That's what happened to us in Door [5]." Ace said. He fell silent after he had finished his story.

"Wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight. When all of you arrived here before us, the missing components of the REDs were already gone?" Junpei inquired.

"Y-Yeah." the 9th Man answered. "Oh, a-and if you're wondering about it, w-we were looking all over this room for the m-missing parts."

"We figured that they might not be in this room." Clover said. "So we went in the hallway with all the doors in it."

"We heard a couple of voices from somewhere else." Seven said. "Of course, we followed them."

"Yes, yes. That's how we met up again." Snake said with a faint smile.

Seven examined the REDs again. "You see this long, thin gap on the bottom? It looks like it's missing something electronic. That's what we're looking for right now."

June sighed. "Well, this is terrible. Is there anywhere else we can go to for the time being? After all, the REDs can't function and we can't go on."

Ace frowned. "I'm afraid not. There are more hospital rooms like this one we're in but nothing else."

"So hospital rooms are what are behind these doors?" Lotus asked.

"You are correct. There are plenty of individual rooms in this ship, in addition with this large room." Ace answered as he fiddled through his trench coat for no apparent reason.

"There was another door at the end of the hallway but it's locked." Clover added to the conversation. "According to Snake, there was an astrological symbol engraved on the door's keyhole which apparently stands for **Jupiter**."

"Why are there so many doors with weird symbols on this damn ship?" Santa said out of frustration.

"Maybe Zero's an astronomer?" the 9th Man suggested, who seemed to regain his composure and had stopped stuttering. "He certainly does have a fascination with astrological symbols, doesn't he?"

"Well, how is that going to help?" Seven asked him. "Either way, do any of you know what they all mean?"

Nobody answered him.

"I'll take that as a no then."

"Since we're asking questions here, do you know what the deal with this room is?" Junpei asked. "I thought this was supposed to be a cruise liner but I can't imagine a cruise liner had a hospital room in it."

"I think this is probably hospital ship." Seven answered with great confidence, which surprised Junpei since he expected someone like Snake or Ace to answer his question. "Oh! Maybe this is the Gigantic!"

"The Gigantic…?" Everybody was confused about what Seven meant.

"What is this "Gigantic" you are speaking of?" Lotus said.

"The Gigantic is…"

Seven explained that the Gigantic was a sister ship of the Titanic, who was built in the early 20th century. The Titanic apparently had two sister ships and was identical in almost every aspect to each other. The Gigantic was said to be one of them and was initially intended to be a cruise liner but when she was launched, World War I had begun and the British Navy picked her up as a hospital ship. Sometime later, the Gigantic was damaged by a German Mine in the Aegean Sea but somehow managed to run around after the damage was and miraculously not sunk at all.

Nobody knew the exact details of what happened to the Gigantic after the incident but some speculate that a man called Lord Dashiell Gordain had purchased her. He was apparently one of the survivors of the sinking of the Titanic and the trauma had caused him to turn into a collector of all things Titanic-related. As his obsession deepened, he had decided to buy the Gigantic since he originally wanted to have the Titanic itself, which is impossible since it is now laid on the ocean floor of the Atlantic for all eternity.

The Gigantic was nearly identical to the Titanic and since she had not sunk yet, Lord Gordain was able to obtain it.

"So you're saying that this Lord Gordain bought this ship we're in?" Junpei asked after Seven concluded his story about the Gigantic.

"Yep. Well… At least I think I am." Seven replied.

"No way in hell this is true!" Santa yelled. "We can't be in a ship that is over 100 years old."

"Santa, you should've listened some more." Lotus advised. "… Wait, is that is? You don't have any proof?"

"You mean proof that this ship is the Gigantic?" Seven inquired.

"Yes. That's what I meant."

"Well… This ship is awfully similar to the Titanic and a hospital ship. So I figured it might-"

"Don't tell me that's your only reason!" Lotus interrupted.

"Wait…! I h-have more." Seven said. "Like… Well, it's…"

Whatever Seven was doing, he was certainly not trying to look at Lotus's piercing stare. Eventually, he gave up.

Lotus sighed. "So your memory isn't back yet, right?"

"Well, you're right about that part."

That was when Junpei interrupted their discussion. "Hey, wait a minute! What do you mean that Seven's memory isn't back yet?"

Lotus responded by sighing and shaking her head. Apparently, she was annoyed at the thought of Junpei considering Seven's lost memory as new. So was everybody else. All 8 of them stared at Junpei in a way he was used to now.

"Wait… I was the only one who didn't know about this?" Junpei asked, which everybody responded by nodding. "Why didn't I know of this?"

"Heh… I guess I forgot to tell you." Seven said. "I told everybody else about my memory loss before we ran into you."

"… Oh. Oh. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Junpei groaned.

Then, almost as if to save Junpei from further embarrassment, a bell had rung from far away. It sounded like the clock from the main staircase. After Junpei counted each chime carefully, the bell had apparently rung 10 times.

"It's midnight…" June said. "We have 6 hours left."

"We can't waste our precious time screwing around. Let's go. We have to find the missing parts of the REDs." Seven said.

"Seven's right. Since we looked everywhere in this room, that means there's only one place we can search." Ace said as he walked away from the hospital room.

When all of them followed Ace, they saw that they were in the hallway of many doors.

"W-Wait! Are you honestly saying that we have to search all of the other rooms?" Lotus said, with a desperate tone. It was clear she didn't want to search a great number of rooms.

"Don't worry. We've searched 4 of these doors already." Seven said to reassure Lotus. "We just need to split up the rest between the 9 of us. If each of all does 6 rooms, that's 54 rooms cleared!"

"So there are 54 rooms left?" Lotus asked. She apparently was a bit distrustful of Seven now.

Seven shook his head awkwardly. "I don't know. Neither do any of us."

After a little more discussion, all 9 of them decided to split up and headed towards the rooms to search them. Junpei was chosen to search the rooms on the starboard side, moving from fore to aft. They also decided to reunite at the large hospital room when the clock sounded the time again. If any of them managed to find the missing components during the search, they would yell for the others. If they didn't, they'll return to discuss their next plan of attack.

However…

…

After one hour had passed, Junpei had returned to the hospital room. He was unsuccessful with his search. He found 8 other people waiting for him near Door [8]: Ace, Snake, Santa, Clover, June, Seven, Lotus, and the 9th Man.

Apparently, all of them were unsuccessful at their searches too. But something odd was going on since they were gathering in front of the RED.

"Junpei, look!" the 9th Man said. "The RED is… is…"

As the 9th Man pointed at the RED, Junpei looked at it closely. He soon found out that he didn't need to. It was obvious what had changed.

The display of the RED now read "VACANT". The bottom part's slot was now covered with metal. Junpei sighed at the sight of this.

"Alright, alright. Who did it?" he asked.

"Well…" Everybody started looking away from Junpei. Everybody except Snake, that is.

"We don't know. Neither does Lotus since she's the first one who came back." He answered.

"It was like that when I came back." Lotus said. "No one else was in the room. The other 2 REDs seem to be as normal as this one."

Just in case, Junpei checked the other 2 REDs. It was like Lotus said. What was missing in them was now put into them again.

"Just to be sure… None of you have absolutely no idea what the hell happened to the REDs, right?"

Ace and June nodded. Santa simply shrugged. Seven touched his hat and shook it. Clover started holding Snake's left arm nervously while Snake kept his calm demeanor. The 9th Man started shaking his legs. Clearly nobody knew.

"Well, we only have 5 hours left. We have to proceed." Ace said after a minute of silence. "We can worry about who put the missing parts of the REDs when we escape. So we have to split up again-"

Before Ace could finish his sentence, a groan was heard throughout the room. It sounded human and the sound of someone walking was heard faintly in the distance. After a couple seconds had passed, the sound was gone and was replaced by a human voice.

"Hello? Anyone here? Where the hell am I?"

Soon, the voice was gone and the sound was gone too. All of a sudden, everybody started talking about the groan and footsteps they had heard.

"O-Oh myGgod! D-Did you hear that?" the 9th Man exclaimed. His regained calm composure was temporarily gone in place of his old self but that didn't matter right now. "It w-was the sound of someone walking past this room!"

"What is the meaning of this?" Ace said.

"Apparently, someone else is aboard this ship with us." Snake said. For the first time since the beginning of the game, Snake looked quite startled.

"N-No…" Clover said as she looked down. She looked quite troubled now.

"Who the hell was that?" Seven said.

"Does that mean someone was kidnapped along with us?" Santa yelled.

"Possibly…" Lotus answered.

"Jumpy, do you have any idea what's going on?" June asked.

"No…" was all he had to say.

All of their chattering was stopped when the sound of a door opening was heard. Everybody turned around with great precaution to see who opened it.

A man had entered the room and his face looked very displeasing yet confused. The man's hair was kind of long and on the back of his head, part of his hair stuck out like some sort of bush. He wore a purple suit, which came along with a gray tie. A rose was attached to his left breast pocket and his pants were of dull color and stripes. His shoes were Oxford shoes.

"Who are you people?" the man asked. "And what am I doing here?"

Each of them had varying reactions to the sight of the man.

Ace and the 9th Man were very surprised just by looking him although Junpei suspected there was another reason why they were so shocked.

Santa and Lotus looked angry and displeased since the man had unknown intentions.

Snake simply remained calm although he seemed to be busy in thought,

Clover merely looked surprised at him.

Seven only stared at the strange man as if he was at a staring contest with him.

June looked worried and nothing else.

"Jumpy, do you know who he is?"

Junpei was in shock at the man but only because he thought the only other person aboard the ships besides themselves was Zero so what does this mean…?

"I mean you no harm! But tell me who you guys are now!" the crossed man said.

Ace was the first to answer him. "I suppose we have to introduce ourselves to you then since you say that you won't hurt us. I go by the codename Ace."

The man didn't look as angry as before for some reason. "Ace, huh? You really think you're number one?"

Before Ace could answer, Snake interrupted. "My name… I can't tell you. But I go by the codename Snake."

The man looked angrier than before. "Ahaha! You're closing your eyes because you can't stand the sight of me?"

"Hey, that's my brother you're talking about!" Clover exclaimed.

"And who's this little missy?" the insulting man asked.

"Her name's Clover." Santa said, with a disgusted tone. "And you can call me Santa, okay?"

The man smirked. "Ah, I see..."

"My name's Junpei." he said. He had thought the man was going to ask him who he was.

"Hmm… You actually don't make me angry in some sort of way. Interesting…" the man said. "And who's your little girlfriend over here?"

The man waved his finger at June, who answered his question. "Y-You can call me June."

"June, huh? What an interesting name to call yourself by." The man chuckled.

"My name… I can't remember." Seven said.

"Oh? Did you forget it or something?"

"No… I lost my memories. But call me Seven."

"Memories…? Weird." the man said. He didn't look cross at all now.

"I-If you're wondering, you can call me Lotus." Lotus said to introduce herself.

"Oh! What a kind young lady you are!" the man complimented. Junpei could have sworn that he saw Lotus showing a little blush but he ignored it.

"Oh God, what do you call yourself?" the insulting man said.

"Y-You can c-call m-me the 9th Man!" the 9th Man said. He was still nervous but Junpei thought it was because of another reason.

"Oh my God! What terrible codenames to call yourself by!" the man said. "Why can't you tell me your real names?"

"Well…"

Ace explained to the mysterious man about what had happened to them in the past couple of hours. From the part they escaped from the third-class cabins to the part when they met the strange man in this room. He explained everything to him in precise detail. Although it took only roughly 9 minutes, Junpei felt like 2 hours had passed.

"… I see. So all of you were kidnapped for this Nonary Game." the man said as he looked rather sympathetic now. "Does that mean I was kidnapped too for this game?"

"Possibly." Ace answered. "It's best if you cooperate with us if you want to stay alive."

"A-Alright. I'll do as you say." the man said. "By the way, those bracelets… I have one of those too."

The man showed his left hand, with a bracelet attached to his wrist. The number on it was the number 2.

"Since all of us are going under codenames, what is your codename going to be?" Junpei asked. "Well, I don't have a codename, just to let you know."

"My codename? … Just call me Deux. It is two in French." the man explained.

It was odd for everybody to gain a new companion for the Nonary Game since it was a game of the number 9. Junpei thought that 10 people might overdo it. But there was something else he was worried about.

"Speaking of the number 2… Where is Snake?" Junpei pointed out.

Suddenly, everybody looked around in the room. The last time they saw Snake was when he introduced himself to Deux.

"Maybe he went outside this room for a walk while you were explaining everything to him?" the 9th Man suggested.

"If he is, he might be lost." Ace said. "After all, he's blind."

"Come to think of it, how does he get around in the first place?" Santa asked. "He's blind. He doesn't know where he is!"

Clover raised her head. "Impossible!"

She suddenly looked angry, started shouting and waving her index finger at Santa. "He may be blind but my brother has excellent hearing! He can get around as well as anyone else who can see! So… He can't be lost! He just can't be!"

Junpei noticed that Clover was not angry yet rather nervous at the thought of her brother being gone. Her eyes starting welling up tears but before she let anyone notice, she quickly ran out of the door.

"I'm going to go look for him!" was the last thing she said before she left.

"Well, the RED is working now." Lotus said in order to divert attention. It was a failed attempt.

"Lotus, we can't leave them behind!" June objected,

"This isn't good at all." Ace said. "I'm going to go look for them."

As Ace walked out of the door, Seven, Deux and the 9th Man quickly followed him.

"Oh, come on! Do we have to?" Santa insisted. "Look, the missing parts of the REDs found themselves when we did nothing. Perhaps if we did nothing again, Snake will come along here."

By the time he finished his sentence, everybody else left to search for Snake.

"Oh, dammit. I have to do this too? Hey, wait for me!"

…

**It's been a while since I updated this but that doesn't matter. Right now, Snake is missing. And that's what really matters. By the way, it's pretty obvious who Deux really is if you finished the game. The plot is going to be different since he's there. And no, he's not one of my three original characters in this story. As always, please read and review!**


	8. Inquisition

**Since the sequel to 999 is going to come out soon, I thought I'll take the time to update this.**

**999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors – Inquisition**

"Alright, you know what you're supposed to do right now." said Ace as everyone had huddled around him near the stairs that led to B Deck. "Now let's get going. We have to find Snake and quick!"

"But what about our search spots?" Seven asked. "We can't check each place one at a time together."

"Just find a place to check and stay there." Deux advised. "Basically, first come, first served. Now, can we find this Snake person and continue with our lives?"

Everybody started splitting up and walked to different areas that they had access to right now. Only two people were left after everybody else vacated the area: Junpei and June.

"Alright. Let's go. Where should we go?" Junpei asked her.

"I-I don't know... Maybe the casino first?" June suggested.

With no better place to go, the duo set off to the casino. It didn't take too long to realize that somebody else was there.

"Oh, it's you." Lotus said. She was leaning against the wall and it looked like she didn't make that much progress in her search.

"Hey, hey. Aren't you supposed to look for Snake?" Junpei asked her.

"Of course I am. But I don't see him anywhere." Lotus answered. "Figures that he wouldn't be in a casino. He doesn't seem to be one of those gambling types, if you know what I mean."

"I don't know... With his clothes, he looks rich enough to spend all day at a casino." June remarked.

"Anyway, I'm glad that you came here." Lotus said with a somewhat suspicious look on her face. "I have a proposal for you guys. You want to hear it?"

Junpei wasn't interested in hearing a proposal during his search. Even with that thought, he still wanted to know what she wanted.

"Sure, why not?" Junpei answered. "What is it? And be quick, we're searching for Snake too."

"Alright, alright." Lotus complied. "Okay, here's the thing. Since there's 9 – or 10, if you count Deux – of us, not everyone's going to have the chance to escape this ship. So why don't we form an alliance then?"

"... Alliance?" June questioned. "What do you mean?"

" Oh come on! You know what I mean by 'alliance.'" Lotus said, annoyed by their obliviousness. "Why don't we team up and go through a numbered door together, hmm?"

"Sorry but we can't." June said. "With the three of us, our bracelet numbers' digital root would add up to 1. And you know what the numbered doors in the large hospital room are."

"No problem!" Lotus said, who looked a bit snarky yet somewhat happy. "We'll just add another person to our 'team.' Now, isn't it obvious what number we should add up to?"

"1?" Junpei said.

"No!" Lotus said, who looked more annoyed than ever. "We add Seven to our group. 5+6+7+8=26, 2+6=8, so we can go through Door [8] now!"

"But..." June wondered about Lotus's proposal. "What about the other 5 people?"

"Well, let's do the math, shall we?" Lotus said. "1+2+3+4+9=19, 1+9=1."

"You know for certain that Door [1] isn't in any of the places we've check so far, right?" Junpei asked. He felt confused about the whole idea.

"Of course I do!" Lotus said "What, were you thinking that I leave them behind? I'm not that kind of person. We could always escape from the ship, call for help to rescue them and voilà! We're not really leaving them behind if we do that."

June shook her head. "You're not fooling anyone. You're not going to do anything like that, aren't you? You know that we only have less than 5 hours left to get out of here and by the time help comes for them, they'll already drown..."

"W-Well, you know what they say. You don't know until you try." Lotus said to try to reassure June.

"Okay, let's say that we can call for help just in time. But there's one big problem in your plan." Junpei told her. "With Seven in our group, we can only open Door [8]. We can't open Door [9], unless you're suggesting that we add Ace to our fine little group."

Lotus chuckled in embarrassment. "Well, looks like I didn't think of that."

"What we can do right now is to escape this ship somehow with all 10 of us. There has to be a way, right?" June suggested.

"I hope that you're aren't serious but in case you haven't realized it yet, _only 5 people at most can go through a numbered door_." Lotus said with a calm demeanor. "And if Zero's keeping his – or her – word, then Door [9] is no exception to that rule. Unless there's another Door [9], some of us will be left behind."

"... Yeah... You're right." June said.

"And if you excuse me, I need to have a moment alone with my thoughts." Lotus said as she leaves. "Why don't you check on Clover? She doesn't seem to take it well that her brother's missing? The last I saw of her was near the 1st class cabin."

…

As Lotus had advised them, Junpei and June went to the cabin to check up on Clover. When they reached the cabin, they saw Clover leaning towards the wall near the entrance to the cabin. She merely looked down at the opposite wall, staring at it as if she was hypnotized.

"... All alone... Here..." Clover mumbled.

"Clover...? Are you okay?

"Yes but please... Go away..."

"You don't seem that fine? Are you sure you're okay?"

Clover suddenly looked up and started yelling at them.

"Go away! Go away!"

"But.. Why?" June said.

"I know for a fact that you guys are going to annoy me! Look, I just want to be alone right now! Don't you get worried if you suddenly get separated from your brother?!"

Neither Junpei or June answered her question.

"Hmph. Should have expected this from you guys." Clover sighed. Junpei knew that while she looked fine on the outside, she would feel ghastly on the inside.

"Alright, alright, we'll leave you to your alone time." Junpei said. "Come on, June. Maybe we should check on Ace."

…

When the two of them reached the hallway with all the rooms in it, they were not surprised to see Ace. They were surprised at the sight of Deux talking to Ace about something.

"... Yes. So that's what you think we should do?" Deux said during his conversation with Ace. Junpei decided to let them finish their conversation first.

"You got it. Anyway, let's start looking for that little girl's brother so we'll look like we're actually doing someth-Ack!"

Ace was startled when he saw Junpei and June watching them.

"Oh! You surprised me!" Ace said in shock. "I was expecting the 9th Man to come."

"Uhh... Why?" Junpei asked him.

Deux sighed. "Isn't it obvious? The three of us decided to work together on finding that blind imbecile so we searched the hallways for any signs of him. But that stupid 9th Man decided to call it quits and went searching with that what's-his-name... Ah! Seven. Yes. Anyway, we had no luck on finding Snake so me and Ace here decided to chat about a few things."

"What were you talking about?" June asked him.

"Something that YOU don't need to know." said Deux, who was snarky as ever. "But if you really must need to know, then we were talking about our interests such as medicine."

"Medicine..." June mumbled.

"What are you doing here anyway?" asked Ace, who seemed to be a lot more easier to communicate with. "You have no luck finding him?"

"Well, yeah." Junpei replied with nervousness.

"Why so nervous?" Deux asked. Junpei was slightly surprised of him to be somewhat sympathetic for him although it was a minor concern for him.

"Oh, nothing." Junpei said. "It's just that having talks about who will be left behind when we reach Door [9] and that Clover seems to be overreacting a bit about her blind brother really lowers my morale, you know?"

"... Oh, I see." Ace said. "Well, don't worry about her. Snake's bound to pop out sooner or later. Why don't you go back to the large hospital room? You don't seem to be having much luck finding him."

…

When they got back to the large hospital room, they were not surprised to see that across the numerous rows of beds were Santa, Seven, and the 9th Man huddling together around the RED near Door [7].

"Hey... What are you guys doing?" Junpei said to get their attention. As expected, the three of them turned their heads towards him. The two of them quickly walked up to the trio.

"Oh, it's you." Santa said. "We're just checking out the RED near this numbered door. In other words, basically nothing."

"Well, technically, we're doing _something_ that piques our curiosity." the 9th Man corrected him. "Doing nothing means you stay in a static state not doing anything with a meaning or purpose."

"... Anyway, you're probably wondering why we're doing this, right?" Seven asked.

"Well, you got us." June said.

"Hmph. You guys need to stop being so predictable." Santa remarked. "Anyway, I was thinking... Who the hell placed the components of the REDs back together when we spent so much time looking for them in the first place without telling us?"

"..." Nobody answered for a brief moment until Junpei decided to answer.

"Maybe... Maybe somebody else other than the 10 of us placed them back together? After all, Deux's presence kind of makes me wonder if there are more people aboard this ship."

"I see." Seven said as he nodded along with Junpei's idea. "Still, something's about that idea is wrong."

"Yeah." the 9th Man agreed as he started stroking his chin. "Why would this mystery man put the parts of the REDs back together for us? And the answer is that there's absolutely no reason. Unless he has an ulterior motive, that is..."

Santa shook his head. "Not only that, but don't you find it weird that Deux suddenly appeared and Snake disappeared afterwards? I'm not sure if it's a coincidence that both of them have the same bracelet number."

"What, do you mean that Zero kidnapped Deux to 'replace' Snake?" Seven asked him.

"Not exactly..." Santa said. "And I don't buy the whole 'there can be other people on this ship' shtick. Maybe Deux is Zero and he personally came to us so we don't do any funny business."

Everybody stared at Santa when he told them his idea. "I don't know..." June said. "Wouldn't Deux have another bracelet number if he was Zero then?"

"Tch. Not exactly." Santa replied. "If his bracelet number is zero, then it would be a dead giveaway that he's Zero."

"Hey, hey. Think about it for a second." the 9th Man interjected. "If we add zero to let's say, 16, then adding zero would not affect the digital root of the number, which for this case, it is seven."

"And not only that, my bracelet number is pretty special too." the 9th Man continued. "It's function for the digital root is the same thing for zero. It does not change the digital root of the number, even if you add 9 to the number. 3+6+7=16, 1+6=7. 3+6+7+9=25. 2+5=7. Don't you get what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, I think so." Seven admitted. "If Deux is Zero, his bracelet number would be nine instead. Not only because it does not change the digital root of a number when added to it, but having the mastermind have the number 9 as his/her bracelet number does keep with the whole 9 theme Zero has going on here."

"Well, you guys didn't seem to find Snake. I'll get the others since for the most part, they probably didn't find Snake too." Santa said before he ran off to get the others.

…

After a bit of waiting, Santa and the other 4 participants of the game had came back to the hospital area. It was clear that Snake was nowhere to be found after their searching.

"Okay, now that was a waste of time." Lotus said frustratingly. "It's obvious that Snake's not in any of the areas we've searched in. And those areas are all of them!"

"Well, not all of them..." Ace said menacingly. "Have we forgot about the 3 numbered doors in the very vicinity of this room?"

Clover gasped. "No... You can't mean that...!"

"I'm afraid it's true, little girl. Your brother Snake has to be behind one of those doors." Deux said with a little more cold-heartedness added to his tone, which was something that had shocked both Santa and June. "And if we find him there, it's not going to be a pretty sight."

"Yeah. We know what you're saying." Junpei added. "The bomb inside of him might detonate..."

"No! It's not true!" Clover said, who was practically sobbing right now. "It can't be! My own brother's dead! No, that's wrong!"

"S-Sorry, Clover but it's the only logical explanation." the 9th Man said as an attempt to comfort her about the horrifying revelation. "One or more of us must have pushed Snake into one of the numbered doors. Now, since we know where Snake is, the problem is who did the deed?"

Nobody answered. It was understandable, since no one would like to admit to murdering a little girl's blind brother.

"Are you saying that...?" Santa said coolly. He didn't seem to be surprised at the idea of Snake being dead.

"Yep." the 9th Man said. "The one who placed Snake into one of the numbered doors is one of us."

"!"

"B-But why would one of us would kill Snake?!" Junpei argued. "All of us on this very ship (not counting siblings of course) are complete strangers to each other. We have no motive to kill Snake!"

"Hmm..." Seven pondered before he replied to Junpei. "Sorry to break it to you but sometimes, you don't need a motive to kill people. Sometimes people kill just to kill, like hunting. Sometimes people kill for no reason at all."

"As much as I don't want to agree with you, I'm afraid that you're right." Lotus said, who looked a lot more troubled than before. "But maybe that one of us killed Snake because he was simply in the way, if you know what I mean."

"The rest of us seem to be accounted for." June said as she counted each person. "But isn't it possible that Zero killed him instead? Maybe the reason he kidnapped all of us is to kill us one-by-one..."

"No! I don't want to die!" the 9th Man panicked. "And I certainly don't want to die in these clothes!"

"Zero killing Snake? It's possible..." Deux said with a much lighter tone. "I'm still wondering who is Zero though."

Clover opened her mouth but no words came out of it. She seemed to have wanted to say something but quickly changed her mind instead.

"Either way, the only way to make sure that Snake is truly dead," Ace said to try to calm Clover down, "is to enter the numbered doors ourselves. We have 9 people so we have enough people to fulfill the requirement for each of these 3 doors."

"Now, I will get to go to Door [3]." Deux had decided before anybody had even spoken a word about the doors. "Ace and the 9th Man will accompany me. 1+2+9=12. 1+2=3."

"O-Okay." the 9th Man said as he looked a little frustrated that he had agreed to go with Deux through Door [3] without his consent. "I just hope it's not one of those creepy laboratory rooms. Now that would be a little too cliché."

"Clover, Junpei, wanna go with me?" Lotus said. "All three of us create the digital root of 8 so we can go to Door [8]. 4+5+8=17. 1+7=8. Santa and June can go with Seven since 3+6+7=16. 1+6=7."

"No, go with me instead. I don't want you kids to hang out with a lady who has no shame into showing... Those..." Seven insisted.

"Hey, take that back!" Lotus exclaimed. Seven ignored her and looked at Junpei and Clover.

"Alright, alright, I'll go with you, Seven." Junpei said.

"Good choice." Seven said, with Lotus pouting at Junpei's decision.

"Oh, great." Santa sighed. "Me and June have to hang out with the old lady again."

It did not surprised Seven that Lotus had smacked Santa three times.

"Well, it looks like we're going to be separated for each other, Jumpy." June said as she seemed to tried her hardest not to cry. Junpei noticed this and tried to change her mood.

"Hey, don't worry. Don't you remember when we went through Door [4], we soon met with the others that went through Door [5]? This is probably the same situation."

"Y-Yeah. You're probably right, Jumpy." June said after a bit of thinking. "Still, I'm not so sure..."

"June, don't worry about it." Santa said as he yawned. "It'll be poor game design if Zero wouldn't make us meet each other again. After all, if we didn't, then nobody can get through Door [9]. You get it now?"

"Y-Yeah. I got it now..." June said as she walked towards Door [8].

"H-Hey! Ace, why didn't you put your hand on the RED yet?" the 9th Man said anxiously. "Deux and I already did and all you're doing is to stare at Junpei and June."

"O-Oh... I was merely dazed for a second. Excuse me." Ace said confusingly as he placed his hand on the RED.

Deux pulled the lever and Door [3] had opened with no problems. Ace, Deux, and the 9th Man quickly entered the door.

"O-Okay. Have a good one, guys. We're going off ahead now." the 9th Man said before the door closed.

After a couple of seconds watching the 3 men enter Door [3], Seven broke the silence. "Come on, we don't have a lot of time left in this hellhole. We gotta get going."

"Yeah. See you guys later." Santa said.

…

**I have to say, making Deux somewhat of a jerk to the others make him a bit easy to write. Since you never see him talk in the actual game, I don't exactly have to worry about him acting out of character. It's the same case for the 9th Man too since he died way early in the game. As always, please read and review. **


	9. Quaternary Game

**I'll be waiting until Christmas to buy Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward so no spoilers in the reviews please. In other words, here's the next chapter.**

**999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors – Quaternary Game**

After Lotus, June, and Santa departed through Door 8, Seven quickly placed his hand on Door 7's RED. Clover and Junpei did the same thing too.

"Now, who wants the honor of pulling this goddamn lever?" Seven asked.

"I'll do it." Junpei volunteered. He pulled the lever with much unnecessary force and the numbered door welcomed its three visitors. They quickly jumped in and in no time, the door slammed shut behind them.

"Quick! Find the damn DEAD!" Seven yelled as the electronic beep of their bracelets rang out.

It took no more than 14 seconds for them to find the DEAD. Seven ran towards the hallway of where the DEAD might be. Junpei and Clover followed him with haste. After a tenth of a minute has passed, they reached the end of the short hallway and found the DEAD sitting right next to a wooden door. The trio hurriedly verified themselves at the DEAD and Seven quickly pulled the lever.

Now that they were safe from a deadly explosion in their intestines, the three of them had the time to catch their breath going through the rather short hallway. Junpei saw that the wooden door had the plaque labeling it "Operating Room."

After 30 seconds had passed, Seven decided to open the doors. Well, more like slamming the doors instead.

"Hey! You don't have to slam it, you know!" Clover annoyingly said.

"I don't care if Zero's doors are gonna be broken. That's what he gets for kidnapping us." Seven rebutted.

"Yeah, because damaging a door is the perfect and greatest comeback to a guy who kidnapped you." Junpei said with less-than-subtle sarcasm. "Anyway, let's go in. Ladies, first."

"Oh, are you scared of what's inside?" Clover tauntingly asked him. Junpei insistently nodded no.

As Clover touched the doorknob and opened the door, it produced a great creak. The place didn't seem furnished although it was an operating room and it didn't look like it was used recently. Clover ignored the creaking and entered the room.

The three of them saw that the room was greatly covered by a gigantic screen. It was understandable, since no one would want to see what a middle of an operation would look like. Oddly enough, there were huge bloodstains all over the screen whose silhouettes that was seen on their side of the screen. A terrible stench was smelled even at those at the other side of the huge screen.

"Must have been one hell of an operation the guy had." Seven commented before Clover rushed past him.

As soon as she went to the other side to see what was on the screen, she shrieked and screamed as if she had seen something horrifying. The two men quickly went towards her side to see what she saw. And when they did, it was very clear of what Clover shrieked at.

The first thing they saw was blood. Lots of blood. And flesh. Junpei and Seven had looked at where the bloodstains had come from and instantly stopped their breathing from running at the hallway. They felt like that they were being shot right at the forehead. The somewhat regal clothes splattered with blood belonged to the person who had the unfortunate fate of having their flesh and blood splatter all over the place and that person was none other than Snake.

The body was lying in the blood basin surrounding him and fragments of his flesh were lying in clusters. Snake's torso torn instantly as the bomb activated and his intestines had leaked out. His pieces of flesh scattered on the screen and had stuck themselves on the screen and his flab had fallen to the floor by the forces of gravity even after they managed to dry themselves on the screen.

"Holy crap... I can't believe this is what happens to someone who explodes inside..." Seven muttered to himself. There was no point to since all of them were equally frightened by Snake's cadaver.

The results of Snake's explosion was so powerful it was a wonder of why they didn't hear the explosion during their search for Snake. Snake's legs had bent at a 245 degrees angle and was horribly damaged during his collision with the screen. His left arm was split open but his elbow bone was not shown. Then again, Junpei didn't want to see it anyway.

His bracelet had miraculously survived the explosion as it had lied next to the barely recognizable corpse. In fact, the only way they even recognized the body as Snake was because of his clothes. His head was almost dismembered from his body and the blood had covered almost every part of his head. Junpei could still recognize part of Snake's gray hair. His clothes, which were of elegant and expensive fashion, was now one with Snake's bloodbath. His shoes were the only part of his clothing which was barely stained. The back of the screen where the body lies was heavily stained with crimson sanguine.

"Oh my God..." Junpei said in astonishment and fear. "Why did he had to die...?" Why? Why?!"

Clover, who had lost her balance due to the shock of finding her own brother lying lifeless near a screen in an operating room, backed away from the body and soon stood up and ran away as far as she could go. She couldn't stand the sight of the dead body and its remains anymore.

"Hey, where are you going?!" Junpei called for her to come back but he understood why she ran away from Snake's carcass.

"Can't believe Snake died like this. I certainly don't want to die from a stupid bomb." Seven remarked. "Who do you think killed him?"

"What?" Junpei said in confusion.

"You know what I mean." Seven said. "Like the 9th Man said, one of us must have pushed Snake into this numbered door and then the bomb inside him activated and... You know the rest."

"Well... If we subtract 2 from 7, we would get 5." Junpei said to answer his question. "Now, since we need at least 3 people to enter a numbered door, at least two people would have to form the digital root of 5."

As soon as Junpei pointed out his observations, Seven immediately glared at him.

"Hey, just for the record, I didn't do it!" Junpei said. "You can ask June if you don't believe me."

"What made you think that I was thinking that you did it?" Seven asked.

"Well, if I verified on the RED along with Snake, I just need the number 9 to form the digital root of 7. 2+5+9=16, 1+6=7." Junpei pointed out his own line of logic. "But I didn't do it. Someone else must have done it. Really."

"Just to make things clear, I didn't do it too." Seven said. "So don't think that I killed him too! Now, come on. Let's look for Clover first before we try to find our way out of this stupid room."

Before Junpei decided to start looking for Clover and clues to escape this morbid room, he approached Snake's remains. He hesitated at first but eventually decided to go for it and grabbed the numbered bracelet lying next to him.

"Why did you do that?" Seven asked him as he noticed Junpei near the atrocious remains of Snake.

"Oh, no reason..." Junpei answered him. It was obviously a lie and Seven knew that fact perfectly.

"Okay... Now, I'll go find Clover. You can find something to help us" Seven ordered him as he walked away.

The first thing that Junpei did that didn't involve a dead body was to check a nearby amber table slightly covered in blood with a huge beige doll placed on it. The doll seemed big enough to be mistaken for a dead body but after seeing the results of violating Zero's rules, the doll seemed meager in comparison. The doll seems to be labeled "John" so Junpei assumes John was the doll's name. He now wondered why a somewhat creepy doll was placed on a table on the first place.

To the right of the table was another albeit smaller table with various tools Junpei assumes surgeons use in operations. He sees a pair of scissors, which he grabs.

"Are those scissors?" a voice suddenly broke the video game music playing in Junpei's mind. It was Clover, with Seven right behind her. Clover looked a lot better now after Seven somehow convinced her to not act gloomy about her brother's explosion.

"No, no. Those are Kocher forceps. They're used to hold blood vessels shut and to keep tissue out of their way." Seven corrected her, shocking the two of them with his intelligence. "These are used to pull stuff out of small holes. If I were you, I wouldn't run with Kocher forceps."

There was another table covered by a blanket, which Seven removed in a way similar to a magician would do. The table revealed a mannequin similar to John but this one was in broken in pieces.

"Wasn't the mannequin on the other table a man?" Clover said. Apparently, she had noticed the mannequin John while she caught the sight of a dead man's remains. "What's his name?"

"John." Junpei answered. "This one's a female mannequin named Lucy."

"Why does she only have her head and her left arm?" Seven asked his companions. "I gotta say, it's very painful to have only your head and one of your arms."

"It's not painful at all since you're already dead." Clover pointed out. "Anyway, I think we're supposed to find the rest of her."

"I wonder if Zero has any...personal uses for her." Seven joked, with Clover giving him a disturbed glance.

A nearby heater, with the rust on it suggesting that it had not been used for a while, was next to the table was but there was nothing inside it. Another table nearby had a strange chest-like object placed on the table. Junpei examined it briefly before he realizes that it was a fake chest for Lucy and suddenly asked Seven to carry the mannequin's chest for him.

"Sure, why not?" Seven agreed. "Besides, this could be the only opportunity to look at a woman's chest without her slapping me."

"Don't tell me that you tried to do that with Lotus..." Junpei mumbled, with Seven quickly glancing at the bloodstained ceiling.

The trio went to the screen covered with the most blood and found a scalpel placed on a table with many tools covered with blood although Junpei wasn't sure if the blood on those tools belonged to Snake. For all he knew, the blood came from the patients the surgeons used the tools with. Besides, the scalpel was the only tool that was usable since it was not rusty at all. It looked relatively new, as if someone purposely placed it there.

"What do you think we should cut with this scalpel?" Clover asked the two men. Neither of them answered back.

Another medical mannequin was spotted to be placed on a small table. It was basically a model showing the various organs in your body, which disgusted them as the mannequin was conveniently placed right next to Snake's body.

"Hey, guys. Look!" Seven said to gather their attention. "I can feel something in this thing's chest. Give me those Kocher forceps so I can cut this damn thing."

Junpei followed the older man's orders and Seven managed to get the fake organ containing the object.

"Scalpel." Seven said. Junpei handed him the scalpel and Seven cuts the organ to get some sort of key. Seven handed Junpei the organ key.

"Yes! Now I can open the locked doors in this stupid place!" Junpei said triumphantly. "Kinda creepy if the organ you cut was a real one."

"Well, it's not real." Seven responded. "Now let's go! We can't afford to waste any more time."

The three of them took no time to go towards the other side of the screen and unlocked the door located next to the door they entered the operating room from. When they entered, they sighed in relief as the room looked like one of those storage rooms but instead, its contents had been placed neatly against the shelf. There were various bottles containing liquids Junpei had probably heard of once or twice in his whole entire life.

The first thing they saw when they entered the room was a table holding two bottles that looked identical to each other, a metal box which Junpei guessed was a safe, and a small note placed right next to it. Junpei tells Clover and Seven to check the two bottles while he reads the note. Clover opened the first bottle and poured a tiny amount of liquid on the table. Some sort of blue liquid poured out of the bottle, which caught her by surprise.

"Eww! What the hell is this?!" Clover wondered. "Is it blood of some sort?!"

"Probably not. Maybe it's some sort of shampoo." Seven suggested, with Clover shaking her head at Seven's suggestion. "Anyway, what's in that other bottle?"

Seven repeated what Clover did with the first bottle and finds that some sort of red liquid dripping on the table.

Clover gasped as the tiniest drop of red liquid made contact with the brown wooden table. "Is that blood?!"

"Seven looked at the liquid carefully. "Nah. Blood's thicker than this stuff. But I still dunno what this stuff is."

"Oh, I bet you have first-hand experience with blood." Junpei commented. Seven didn't bother to answer him.

"So, what's on that note?" Clover asked him. Junpei told his two companions the contents of the note monotonously.

"Iron=1, Salt=2, Water=3, Carbon dioxide=?, Ammonia=?, Ethanol=?"

"Hmm... I wonder what this hints..." Clover said. "And what does it mean by Iron=1?"

"It's the number of atoms iron has." Seven answered, who briefly shocked Junpei and Clover with his answer. "I bet the paper's asking you how many atoms are contained in the last three elements."

"Well, I know this." Junpei said as he tried to remember the lessons he learned in his chemistry class. "Carbon dioxide has 3 atoms as it's composed of 2 oxygen atoms and 1 carbon atom. Ammonia has 1 nitrogen atom and 3 hydrogen atoms. I don't know what atoms ethanol is composed of but I know it has 9 atoms."

Junpei's answer had Seven briefly shocked as he didn't expect Junpei to know the number of atoms of certain elements. He doubted Junpei for a second but noticed the nearby bottles placed on the shelves nearby. Seven looked at all of them briefly and verified Junpei's answer.

"Looks like someone has looked at the Periodic Table." Clover commented. "So Carbon Dioxide=3 Ammonia= 4 Ethanol=9. Maybe that's the passcode for opening that box."

The box had a keypad stuck to it so it was now locked. Junpei looked at the dusty keypad briefly and quickly pressed the buttons "349" to unlock the box. He pressed the "E" button to insert the code and in succession, a quick beeping noise rang throughout the room. It meant that the box was now unlocked.

"Yes! We unlocked the box!" Junpei said in a way similar to a burglar breaking into a house at night and unlocking a safe. "Now let's get what's inside!"

The contents of the box was not at all like a run-in-a-mill safe would contain. The box had a fake right arm that belonged to a certain mannequin and a fake heart for the same mannequin.

"I gotta say, there's no way in Hell I would find this stuff in a regular safe." Junpei commented as he handed Seven the pieces of the mannequin. "Anyway, I think that's about it for this room. Let's go."

Clover, who at first hesitated to return to the room with the remains of an explosion, was the first one to leave the room and as Junpei was about o do the same thing, Seven grabbed his shoulder to stop him.

"Hey, Junpei. You got a minute?" Seven asked him. "You know what this is?"

Seven handed Junpei a bottle labeled "Ethylenediamine tartrate." It was known as EDT, or tartaric ethylenediamine.

"Is this medicine?" Junpei asked him, with Seven shaking his head sideways.

"I'm pretty sure this is a industrial-strength detergent." Seven answered back. "Maybe they have it in here to clean their stuff up. And it works too."

"How do you know?" Junpei asked him suspiciously.

"It cleaned my brain up." Seven responded, with his answer confusing Junpei.

"So does this mean you got your memory back now?" Junpei asked hopefully.

Unfortunately, Seven answered no. It only helped him remember a very tiny piece of his memory. "This stuff did help me remember a short story about EDT though. That's something. You wanna listen to it?"

"It's weird that that's the only thing you happen to remember." Junpei commented before answering Seven's question. "Ehh... Sure, why not? I love a good story."

…

**You can tell that Snake actually dying in a different place might change on how the true ending would play out, did you? He wasn't exactly my favorite character as my favorite character in 999 was Clover. Surprising? Well, it's not. I will tell you on how Snake's death affects Clover in the long run soon. Well, as always, read and review. **


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